Ain't Easy Being Wheezy!

So its happened, the time has come to say goodbye to xolair! The MDT all agreed that it clearly isn't giving me any benefit anymore in terms of preventing my flares, so we have decided to stop it. Unfortunately I'm already on all the maximum therapy and don't meet the criteria for any other biological treatments so my team have decided to refer me to Birmingham to hopefully undergo bronchial thermoplasty. Bronchial thermoplasty (BT) is a fairly new procedure ( https://www.asthma.org.uk/advice/severe-asthma/treating-severe-asthma/bronchial-thermoplasty/ ) that involves passing a tube down into the lungs and heating it to essentially burn away some of the thickened muscle. I'm not going to lie, it doesn't sound like a particularly pleasant experience and there are definitely risks associated with it, but surely it has to be better than spending a week of every month in hospital on oxygen and IV medication?! My centre is restarting their BT service but apparently b...

So thanks to the incredibly mild winter my hayfever season has already started! Which means that I got my wish of wanting to see if xolair would help reduce my symptoms in my main allergy period. Turns out the answer to that is a resounding NO! I've had hayfever symptoms for about 2 weeks and so far have had 1 A&E trip and am currently on day 5 of another holiday in hotel NHS! Yet another attack with a silent chest, IV aminophylline, critical care outreach reviews and oxygen for days - still avoiding the dreaded ITU admission, but to be honest I'm getting bored of skirting the line! I think its probably time to give in and call it quits with the xolair, it helped a bit but its really not doing enough and staying on it is just stopping further treatments and investigations from happening. So we're hoping my clinic appointment can be brought forwards (its currently in about 6/7 weeks time) and that we can get everything pulled together and up to date with one consulta...