Freakishly high PEFs

[gitl_eli7]

I moved to a new city and got a new pulmonologist, who totally pisses me off for several different reasons. One of which is... Well, you see, I have freakishly high peakflows. I try to keep in shape, I stay pretty healthy. According to my gender and height I should have a PEF of 427, while I easily can top 500. So when I'm having a hard time

Comments

[wrin]

Your "green zone" is based on your personal best PEFR. Not the "predicted" best. Predicted is what we use when we have nothing else to go on, and + or - 20% of predicted is perfectly normal.

[dontcryforme]

This. I'd tell your new pulmo what your personal best is and see if s/he goes with that instead. If not, find a new doctor.

[nscangal]

^^ My best is a full 120 higher than it "should" be (according to my height, age and sex, I "should" have a personal best of ~450. It's 570. Which is irritating, because 300 feels really shitty, and most docs go, "but your peak flow isn't that bad!" "But you're not wheezing!" pisses me off, too, because my asthma doesn't typically make me wheeze - I can be having severe difficulty breathing, but not be wheezing, and most ER docs/nurses I've met can't comprehend the idea that asthma attacks don't require a loud wheeze.

All of the above, incidentally, happened at my last ER visit. The one that my GP sent me in ambulance for since I had the dubious luck to have a nasty flare in the middle of a doctor's appointment (and the ER jerks couldn't get it through their head that suffocating to death tends to make one a little anxious, and just wrote me off as an anxiety attack.. pO2 of <80% when the ambulance arrived notwithstanding).

[nscangal]

^ Pardon the language. I'm irritated from someone giving me the "I bet if you stopped your medications and tried this snake oil I'm trying to sell you, you'd get better right away!" talk. *eyeroll* Forgive my transference of irritation.