
Suggest Remedies For Persistent Shortness Of Breath And Cough

I failed to mention the xray showed no pneumonia....do I need a cat scan?
Some information:
Detailed Answer:
Hello XXXXXXX
I am sorry you are feeling so poorly.
So on reading your history I am trying to sort this out. I have noted that the chest X-ray was clear - no pneumonia. But that doesn't mean that you don't have a bronchitis, which does not show up on a chest X-ray. Also, if it is a viral bronchitis, an antibiotic will not help.
There are other things that can cause shortness of breath and a cough other than pneumonia, COPD, and lung cancer.
Now I see that the PA advised Mucinex. This makes me think that you are having some nasal or sinus congestion. Is that the case? Because if you also have upper respiratory symptoms in your nose/throat, COPD, then there is evidence for an infection rather than COPD or lung cancer.
If the pain in your back and with breathing is increasing, then you should go back in. Especially if you have fast breathing, fast heart rate, or are light headed. This can indicate a clot in the lungs. A chest CT can show this. But I doubt that this is the problem if there was also congestion (i.e. what I wrote about the Mucinex above).
If the symptoms are not getting overall worse, you may need to just weather it out.
I hope this information helps. Please let me know if I can provide further information or clarification.


Thoughts:
Detailed Answer:
I think if your symptoms of shortness of breath are not showing any improvement and there is no runny, or stuffy nose or sensation of throat post nasal drainage and your oxygen saturations go as low as 87, it would be a good idea to go to the ER. There they can do a blood test called a D-dimer (helps for seeing if there is a clot), and a CT can see if there is a clot or if there is pleurisy (which can give shortness of breath and pain in the chest wall or back).
So while I don't think this is COPD (this does no come on suddenly) or cancer (usually you can see some abnormality of signs of cancer on a chest X-ray), it would be a good idea to go in to get this checked. Again, it may be a bad viral bronchitis, but usually there are some upper respiratory symptoms that would go with that.

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