Pulmanologist Follow Up

We had Walker’s follow-up with Dr. Panesar (the pulmanologist). They retested him for asthma. I got a picture of it this time. 🙂 It’s a fun little test where you blow into a machine and see if you can make the hot air balloon blow up all the way. Walker feels like the office is too geared towards little kids…being 16 he feels a little “mature” for these games. Hehe!

They also did an allergy test on him. He’s never had one done. They tested him for all sorts of things…dog, hamster, bermuda grass, rye grass, mesquite, ash, milk, eggs, nuts, fish, apples, avocado, bananas, watermelon, there was 2 pages of things there were looking for. Turns out he doesn’t have allergies! All of these years we’ve had him on Claritin and Flonase because the Dr. said he had them but he doesn’t. 

From what I’m understanding though, the Dr. said he does not have allergic rhinitis but he may benefit from taking an antihistamine and nasal steroid to decrease the nasal turbinate swelling and edema in the nose. So I’m not exactly sure why he still needs the antihistamine but somehow it helps the nasal tissue from swelling? Perhaps his nose is just sensitive to normal things in the air..like pollution?

Walker has seen some improvement with the trial of Afrin (which is a nasal spray that does what these other 2 will do together but you don’t become addicted to it). He is still snoring some but not as loud and his anxiety seems to improve considerably the next day after using it. 

Dr. Panesar said if the spray is not helpful enough that he would recommend a septoplasty for his deviated septum and turbinate reduction. The ENT did mention the turbinate reduction but I never heard him talk about the septoplasty. I spoke to the ENT’s office today and I guess it “was” in his notes to do both. My brain tries to keep track of all this important stuff but sometimes it just slips out…LOL!

The Dr. said he’s not sure whether the nasal sprays will be helpful for his long-term usage and wants us to follow-up with Dr. McKenna (the ENT) to discuss what he feels is the best option since the spray seems to help but not entirely. He did say if we move forward with the septoplasty he would like to order another sleep study a few months after its healed to see if he’s still having sleep apnea issues. 

I asked about a CPAP machine to help him for now but the he said until the septum is corrected the CPAP won’t help him at all.