applesauce

At this moment in time this is what I'm presumed to be diagnosed with, so I was hoping to get some help/advice/reassurance from people who know a lot more than I do about what the situation is.

Here's the backstory.

I'm 26, female, living in the UK. I'm also Aspergers, which makes me predisposed to sensitivity (eczema, sensitive hearing, eyes go red in sun easily, etc). At eleven I was diagnosed with Perennial Rhinitis and given various treatments, none of which worked. So I kind of added it to my list of health weirdness and got on with my life.

I'm also a singer. At least, singing (music and so on) is one of my major motivations in life. So right now I'm probably more frightened about that aspect of it than anything else.

So far back as I can remember I've always had issues with digestion - I don't think there's been a single day when I haven't felt at least a little bit nauseous at some point or another. Trouble is I don't know what's physical and what's related to my AS, because I also don't do well trapped in places with lots of people, noise and food (restaurants, cinemas, etc). I have no clue whether my digestion discomfort has preconditioned this particular phobia or whether the phobia has preconditioned my digestion, to be honest :S I have had periods in the past of anxiety and I put this originally down to that, but now I'm pretty sure it's not the case. (I am well aware though that my predisposed on-edgeness is probably not making it any better).

Anyhow, a couple of months back I began to have the sensation of something being stuck in my throat. My throat was sore a lot, too. I always have sore throats on and off, post nasal drip, coughing, etc - because of what they told me was rhinitis, I just kind of ignored it. However this time it's affecting me much more in two particular ways.

#1: I'm not able to sing. Singing is one of my coping mechanisms, so as you can guess, I'm not really very happy about this. Honestly, I'm terrified of not being able to sing again.

#2: Sometimes when I'm walking a short distance I'm quickly out of breath. It's not like I can't breathe so much as I feel like I've made much more effort to get from A to B (like if you're walking into a hard wind, or something like that).

Anyhow, I went to my doctors (been three times now actually). The first time they gave me an inhaler in case it was asthma (family all suffer) but it pretty obviously wasn't. Went back, different doctor. She didn't prescribe me anything at that point but advised me to rest my voice and see what happened. I did and it did improve somewhat, but returned so I went back to her and we discussed the possibility of it being LPR.

As of five days ago now I've been on PPI (Omeprazole) 20mg 1 tablet/day. I have no idea how long it will take to work or if it will work at all (miraculously it hasn't given me side effects, since I'm usually not great with medication).
Although I think that the breathing side of it has improved since I saw her (I managed to go swimming this morning with no ill effects, but it has come and gone a little so I can't be sure that it's really 'going') and though I've been doing my best to be more careful when and where I eat, my voice seems to be worse (more clogged up) in the morning than it was before.

I realise I've only been taking the tablets a relatively short amount of time. The thing that bugs me most is that if this is LPR, and if that is why I have been sniffling since I was eleven or before, why has it taken this long to so badly affect my voice (and if my vocal chords are somewhat hurt, will they recover by themselves?)

I also work in a busy library environment which means that I'm not able to rest my voice much when I'm working and I'm sure that might be aggravating it. It feels like my vocal chords are sore when I'm talking for too long and I've stopped singing altogether (which is adding to my stress, sigh).

My doctor wants to see me again in about three weeks to see whether the PPI have had any effect. Does it take 4 weeks for them to really have an effect? More importantly, does it sound like LPR to people here and am I ever going to get my voice back??

Does anyone have any advice on good things to do between now and seeing my doctor again? She said when she first saw me and the last time that she didn't think it was anything sinister but if I can't sing, that's sinister enough for me (and there's still that li'l Aspie worrywart part of me which is wondering...what if she's wrong...?)

Thanks in advance to anyone who replies.

Apple