Hello doctor, I have no familial history of asthma or COPD. I am a 38-year-old male, 30 BMI with prehypertension which I am trying to manage first with diet and exercise. Parents both have hypertension. Two years ago, I became a new home-owner and decided to do some home repairs on my own. I was sanding drywall most times without a mask, and had put some floor patch and leveler and had hammered certain spots and smoothed it out with a sander, most times without a mask. A month ago, I developed a cough and my fiance caught it from me as well, but she is fine now. It had some mucous, no fever, I was still able to attend school without difficulty. However, now I have a dry cough, intermittent. Where at times I feel itchy and cough. No sputum, and now my airway feels a bit dry especially my oropharynx and it has been over a month and I still have an intermittent cough that is not going away. No bloody sputum or anything. And when I am sleeping at night, I do not really have coughs especially since I can sleep throughout the night without waking up from coughs. I feel it more when I drive in a car and have air conditioner towards my face and cold air. I went to the urgent care center yesterday and they prescribed antibiotics Clarithromycin, and Methylprednisone 4 mg week-long schedule and one place did a chest X-ray. He said the lower bases showed some congestion, maybe mucous plug. I am worried about silicosis. How do I rule this out? Today I feel like I am in a swimming pool a bit. Yesterday, other then the intermittent cough I had no issue with breathing. I smoke marijuana occasionally and have stopped since I realized it was really irritating my throat. Please help me.
Hi. Two or three things are there in your diagnosis. You should go for some investigation like HRCT(high-resolution computed tomography) thorax, X-ray chest PA (posteroanterior), polysomnography. Till then, you take tablet Azee (Azithromycin) 500 once, tablet Zerodol SP (Aceclofenac- Serratiopeptidase) thrice, tablet Aciloc (Ranitidine) twice along with the above medicine. Kindly send me all the film and reports. For silicosis, you need to have exposure of at least 10 years. So, do not worry, it has fewer chances. For more information consult a pulmonologist online -->