Biography

I am a 66 yr old grandmother. I had a nagging cough forever My doc wasn’t really concerned as it was during Covid that I brought it up to her and everyone seemed to be coughing. She told me I could get a lung x-ray if it would give me peace of mind. I almost blew it off because I wasn’t really worried. But I was waiting for my husband at a facility that had an imaging department and ran down to get an x-ray, thinking nothing of it really. My PCP called me that evening and said something looks very wrong and i should seek the advice of a pulmonologist, who ordered a CT scan. The CT scan confirmed Pulmonary Fibrosis. I found an incredible pulmonologist at MGH who convinced me that a lung biopsy would be beneficial to determining course of action. I had the biopsy in Feb. 2023 which confirmed IPF. Thankfully my case is mild at this point. I have a very nagging and persistent cough that gets pretty violent if I ever get sick. I have tried many things to treat the cough. My doc recently suggested Gabapentin which I have now been on for a couple of weeks. I haven’t determined whether it is helping as I am recently getting over another virus so the cough is subsiding, but not sure if its better that the baseline cough I have had. I am doing pretty well tolerating the esbriet, so i am thankful for that too. I am also thankful that I have found this forum.