Tussilago / Coltsfoot

Tussilago farfara, also known as Coltsfoot.

The name "tussilago" means "cough suppressant". Although still coughing, I was not really tempted to pick these for medicinal use when I came upon them yesterday down by the river… I was just happy to find a sign of spring!

Took the last cortisone tablets on Friday. Although still coughing, there’s been less of it today, and the good news is that today for the first day in nearly two weeks (“touch wood”) I have not felt in need of any extra asthma inhalations. Tiredness seems now to be taking over instead – I feel I’d like to sleep for a week!

Linking to Straight Out of the Camera Sunday

N for Nebulizer

When visiting my health care centre on Monday because of bronchitis and asthma trouble, as part of the examination I was introduced to a Nebulizer .(Swedish: Nebulisator) It was new to me, so afterwards I looked it up to learn its name and a bit more about it.

Nebulizers are used for the treatment of asthma and other respiratory diseases.

Nebulizers use oxygen, compressed air or ultrasonic power to break up medical solutions and suspensions into small aerosol droplets that can be directly inhaled from the mouthpiece of the device. The definition of an aerosol is a "mixture of gas and liquid particles," and the best example of a naturally-occurring aerosol is mist, formed when small vaporized water particles mixed with hot ambient air are cooled down and condense into a fine cloud of visible airborne water droplets.

The first "powered" or pressurized inhaler was invented in France in 1858. This device used pressure to atomize the liquid medication. The pump handle was operated like a bicycle pump.

In 1864, the first steam-driven nebulizer was invented in Germany. The Siegle steam spray inhaler consisted of a spirit burner, which boiled water in the reservoir into steam that could then flow across the top and into a tube suspended in the pharmaceutical solution. The passage of steam drew the medicine into the vapor, and the patient inhaled this vapor through a mouthpiece made of glass.

The first electrical nebulizer was invented in the 1930s, but many people in the 1930s continued to use a much more simple and cheap hand-driven one.

Exactly what kind of electrical nebulizer  it was that I used now, I don’t know. The picture is from the Wikipedia article. The one I used looked similar but not the exact same shape.

Anyway (for those of you who did not read my previous posts this week) it was a test treatment to see how well I responded to cortisone. Afterwards I was prescribed a short cortisone tablet cure to help me through the present problems (my regular everyday treatment with dry powder inhalers having proved not quite sufficient in connection with a bad cold last week)

Sorry if I seem a little obsessed by my own respiration and not much else just now… But breathing is rather essential for the rest of life, you know! ;)

Find more interesting N-words at ABC Wednesday

Household Remedies

In yesterday’s post I asked what you thought might be the origin of a paler version of the picture above. It was created by using the ‘colour reduction’ filter in Picasa. …In the version above, I’ve added colour boost to the colour reduction ...

Cinemascope

Lomo style.  Getting any ideas yet?

HDR style

Ta da! The answer is: Fizzy Vitamin C dissolving in a glass of water on my sink.

Some people believe very strongly in additional vitamin C as household remedy in connection with colds. I’m oversensitive to fresh citrus fruits so don’t eat oranges etc. (they make my mouth itch), but I do think I usually get enough vitamin C from other fruits and berries and vegetables and juices.  In recent years I have not had a lot of colds; I can’t even remember when  I last (before now!) had a really bad one with fever and chest infection.

However,  someone mentioned their faith in vitamin C last week and as I happened to see a tube of them in my grocery shop, I picked one up. I suppose a temporary boost for a few days might do more good than harm (or possibly no difference whatsoever).

I think I would really have preferred it with fewer artificial colour additives though.

My own household remedy this week has been lots of cups of herbal peppermint tea with a little honey added. That’s between all the other cups of black, green and rooibos tea as well!

Do you have any household remedies? Or remember any from your childhood? One that I recall is that my maternal grandfather used to smear butter on skin irritations like burns or bites. (Of course in those days that would be real butter and not table margarine!)

Monday Update

 Short health update: Got to see a doctor at my health care centre today (not my regular GP but another one whom I know since before). I got to do expiratory tests before and after inhaling cortisone through a machine for a while (which did bring some relief), and a quick blood test. She then prescribed a 5-day-treatment with cortisone tablets (besides the basic asthma inhalations I already take regularly).

It has been my own feeling as well that it’s basically been a virus infection taking its natural course but with asthma complications going a bit beyond what I’ve experienced before. For a while I thought it would be enough to just take extra inhalations of the ordinary meds, but hopefully the cortisone tablets will be a better alternative to help calm things down.

I’m really, really longing for a night’s “undisturbed” sleep! Not expecting that to happen immediately, but I do think I’ll be less worried tonight, feeling a bit more reassured about what “is” and what “isn’t” going on!

Meanwhile, you may try guessing what the picture is!
(It’s not an x-ray of my airpipes!)

Slow Motion Battle

“You may have to fight a battle more than once to win it.”
~ Margaret Thatcher ~

I haven’t been able to be out and about much this week; I’m still fighting the battle with the viruses that invaded my body earlier this week.  On Thursday, however, there was also a battle going on in the football field I can see from my balcony. And it wasn’t football! It was the Home Guard practicing self defense – I think. Most of the time they seemed to just be hanging around doing nothing though - and when they did take action it was all in slow motion. Just like me…

Spring is also taking things very slowly. But it’s on its way!  The Clematis on my balcony has survived another winter in its pot, and is showing little buds.