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Replies to "Hello, I had recurring bouts of pneumonia, including walking pneumonias in my 50's and 60's being..."
MAC & Bronchiectasis | Last Active: Mar 6 1:10pm | Replies (28)
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Hello, I had recurring bouts of pneumonia, including walking pneumonias in my 50's and 60's being a school teacher with little kids. I kept getting infected somehow. It wasn't until my 60's the BE diagnosis came up, but my doctor didn't seemed alarmed until in my 69th year I got MAC/NTM. I never heard one thing about airway clearance etc. until recently. Too bad. (My doctor did refer me and want me to go to National Jewish but it wasn't feasible for me at that time. I regret it.) Now 10 years later I developed pseudomonas aeruginosa in my lungs (last summer) and I'm back in recovery mode again. All from multiple pneumonias in my opinion. Take care of those lungs and good luck. Hang in there.
Replies to "Hello, I had recurring bouts of pneumonia, including walking pneumonias in my 50's and 60's being..."
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I taught junior high for 21 years and high school for 9 years and retired after the 30 years in the year 2000. I very rarely was sick during my teaching years, sometimes teaching 100% of the time without absences for entire years.
I was fine for the next 21 years, no problems at all, but began coughing quite a bit in 2021, at age 77, went to a pulmonologist who thought I may have BE but the coughing came and went so we decided to wait for more symptoms before treatment. Fast forward to February 2023: sudden hemoptysis one evening (and many to follow to this date) and a bronchoscopy in early March 2023, which showed the BE and also MAC. Azithromycin, when the cultures came back, showed it ineffective for my types of MAC (fortuitum and chimaera) so there was a replacement antibiotic, Cipro. I was unable to tolerate the 3 antibiotics together. The bronchoscopy also showed I have two fungi infections: Trichosporon and Aspergillus.
Those are the reasons I became a patient at NJH in Denver and am about to finish all the testing done since last August and will know in March what treatment(s) I will need to help me. I turned 79 this past week and up to this point have mostly been using ACTs. I am unable to tolerate saline because it causes the hemoptysis I frequently have. I hope this helps others as they journey forth! We are all different!