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Do I have asthma? (some gross content)

PfrancisPfrancis Posts: 301
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To cut a long long story short I've had hayfever for the past 20 years (I'm now 40) and I've always had a problem with the blocked nose element of it.About 10 years ago I started having tight chests and on numerous occasions I was taken to A&E where I was traeted with oral steroids which always seem to work and sent on my way.My doctor diagnosed me with asthma because of this and was put on every asthma inhaler I can think of and NOT ONE worked.The only thing which worked was the prednisolone tablets because the grey/brown thick mucus was easier to cough up and made my lungs clear until it started again.I was given many courses of steroids to clear this up along with antibiotics and I'm getting to the point that I'm thinking "have the doctors got this right?".
The reason is that (as far as I can remember) EACH episode of a bad chest starts AFTER my nose gets blocked and I can feel myself swallowing thick mucus and when I blow my nose its a very dark colour and smells too.
Just after I was diagnosed with asthma I DID have a nasal polyp taken out but now my nose seems worse.

Does this sound like asthma to you or something else?
Like I said the ONLY thing which clears it up is prednisolone and asthma medication doesn't touch it.
One last thing i forgot to mention is that when my nose problems started (just before I started having bad chests) I used to wake up and blow the biggest lumps of thick dark green mucus out of my nose and lost my sense of smell for a few hours.
Sorry to be so gross

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    [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 1,439
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    #2
    It's unusual for asthma not to react to inhalers on an everyday basis, it's generally a reversible illness.
    Do you smoke OP? There are plenty of chest conditions that can affect people, like COPD for instance. Copd generally wouldn't start so young though, at least not without genetic predisposition or a very early smoking habit! Obstructive, non-reversible illnesses like COPD do not tend to respond hugely well to inhalers, but exacerbations (short term events that cause worsening of symptoms) do tend to react well to short doses of Prednisolone.
    I know it's an obvious answer, but the only way to know is to go back to your GP and discuss it with him.
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    PfrancisPfrancis Posts: 301
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    #3
    thatdarncat wrote: »
    It's unusual for asthma not to react to inhalers on an everyday basis, it's generally a reversible illness.
    Do you smoke OP? There are plenty of chest conditions that can affect people, like COPD for instance. Copd generally wouldn't start so young though, at least not without genetic predisposition or a very early smoking habit! Obstructive, non-reversible illnesses like COPD do not tend to respond hugely well to inhalers, but exacerbations (short term events that cause worsening of symptoms) do tend to react well to short doses of Prednisolone.
    I know it's an obvious answer, but the only way to know is to go back to your GP and discuss it with him.

    Thanks for the reply.
    I was actually tested for COPD but it proved negative and I smoked very rarely say a couple a month on average but it never seemed to start any problems for me anyway.
    The prednisolone courses wit lulls be 6-7 tablets for 5 days but I would start coughing up the dark green/grey stuff almost immediately within a couple of hours.
    My gp (although he means well) is convinced this is asthma but no asthma medication works at all(maybe salbutamol a little).I've been to see numerous asthma specialists who only put me on these expensive machines but I'm got nowhere with them.
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