I am a 35 year old male. I weigh 195 pounds and am 5 foot 9. I currently see a psychiatrist for OCD and Anxiety disorder. I am on 1-2 mg Alprazolam (as needed daily), and 200 mg of Sertraline. In addition to these medications, I have an albuterol inhaler that I take as needed — which is not very often, as I have very mild asthma.

(…) I have been free of using nebulizors, and other inhalers for 20 years — since I started high school. In these twenty years, I have not had a severe asthma reaction that warranted any concern. (…) I had a lung collapse when I was probably five years old, (…) But then it all went away! I went to college, ditched my medication and forgot all about my childhood ailment. (…)I have had pneumonia twice in the last ten years. I am NOT Tobacco smoker. I have for the last five years used cannabis on occasion (I use a double filter chambered water pipe)

On Sunday, 20th November, I woke up to a typical head cold. (…)

By Monday,(…) diagnosed with asthmatic exasperation, which I found very odd. (…) They gave me two nebulizer treatments (back to back), put me on prednisone, and gave me Amoxicillin. (…) Later that evening, things got worse, and my wife rushed me to the hospital (…)

My breathing was terrible. What I could breathe, which was extremely little, was an extremely loud and audible high pitched gurgling sound. I was admitted and began receiving nebulizer treatments every two hours. (…)I’m still doing nebulizer treatments on the machine I haven’t used in twenty years, and taking 40mg of prednisone. The hospital agreed, asthmatic exasperation. (…)

( My question ) How could I go twenty years virtually symptom free of asthma, to randomly, out of the blue, literally on my deathbed from this childhood affliction? In the last twenty years I have been exposed to so many things that never set my asthma off.

(…)