CF Happens

I saw the nurse practitioner at my primary doctors office today because I’ve been having pain in my right ear and upper jaw for about 5 days. She said it was a little red and cloudy. The cloudiness is more of an inflammation/pressure response than an infection. I left there with a sore booty from a solumedrol steroid shot and two prescriptions, one for a prednisone taper and one for oral Bactrim.

I’ve never seen this nurse practitioner. The nurse asked what the issue was today. I told her about the ear and jaw pain. She asked how my breathing was because she could hear me wheezing. My response was, I have cystic fibrosis and pretty bad asthma and that I’m only working with 31% lung function. She said oh, ok. It’s funny how I don’t notice my normal everyday wheezing unless it’s really loud and/or I can feel the rattling. My regular doctor isn’t in the office on Monday’s so that’s the reason I had to see the nurse practitioner and her nurse. My regular doctor knows all about me. Then the nurse practitioner came in and asked what was going on today. She also asked if I was having breathing problems. I told her the same thing about why I am wheezing. She said that’s your normal? I said yep, that’s what I’m working with. She looked in my ears and then we discussed my options. Penicillin and Amoxicillin are usually the go to antibiotics for ear infections. I told her with my history of being allergic to penicillin as a toddler I would like another option. I told her what my usual oral antibiotics were but of course most have some sort of side effect. Levaquin gives my bad arthritic joint pain. Bactrim and Cipro are both somewhat hard on my stomach but they are doable. We decided on Bactrim for 7 days along with the solumedrol shot to get steroids started and then a prednisone taper starting at 30mg.

I told her I appreciated her listening to me so she could better determine what to put me on. She said she appreciated that I know what I’m talking about and I know what helps me. I will call for another appointment to see my doctor if I’m not feeling better in a few days so she can look in my ears again to see if there has been any improvement. Then we can then discuss what the next option is. I’m going email my CF nurse so that my doctor knows what’s going on. Oh and the nurse practitioner did know who my CF doctor is and she said she really liked him. I said me too, he’s great!!

Until next time…