Hello everyone. I've been scanning through this forum, and want to commend you all for being such a resourceful and supportive community. I'm hoping some of you might be able to help point me in the right direction.
I'm a 33-year-old male. I smoked cannabis daily from 2015 to 2021 (6 years), never tobacco. Immediately after quitting, I was experiencing some tightness & discomfort in my trachea area, so my PCP ordered a chest xray. It showed hyperinflation, and so she diagnosed me with COPD.
Then: panic, despair, health anxiety...
So I saw a pulmonoligst to get a 2nd opinion, and he ordered a chest CT and a PFT (attached). He concludes they are both normal, the COPD diagnosis was very premature, and that I should work on my health anxiety.
This was a suitable answer for several years, and any time my breathing started feeling a little funny, I chalked it up to anxiety.
However, now for the last ~6 months, I've been experiencing an inflamed, itchy/scratchy feeling in my lungs, throat clearing, and the return of the lower trachea discomfort/pain. Very minimal coughing.
I went back to the same pulmonologist who ran a FENO test, which was 31ppb, and diagnosed me with mild/moderate persistent asthma and prescribed an ICS + montelukast, but I've seen no improvement. In fact, the discomfort has now become constant. Albuterol does not seem to help.
An ENT examination revealed significant post-nasal drip but no other concerns. GERD was considered unlikely, though I'm scheduled for an endoscopy to rule it out definitively.
Has anyone here experienced something similar? Were you eventually able to pinpoint the issue? Any advice or shared experiences would be greatly appreciated. I'm trying to understand if this is something I'll need to learn to live with, or if there might be another underlying issue.
