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Hi, I am 24 yrs old and just needed to see if anyone may have ideas or suggestions on what can be wrong with my lungs. On jan 2008 i suffered a left sided pneumothorax.. my specialist said that i was born with blebs in my lungs i just never knew until then then in feb my lung collapsed again and again later that same month and then in april and since then so far so good it has stayed up i was living in oregon at the time and ended up moving back home to california thinking it could be the cause i had gotten so sick i got down to 80 pounds and could barely get out of bed i also got weird unexplained chest pains where i could not take no more than a half breath in and this would only last a few mins then stop and it was like it never happened when i moved down to california i got those weird chest pain attacks for the first two weeks but then that got better i decided to pursue a lung specialist down here to make sure everything looked fine i had prior ct scans in oregon which showed i had multiple blebs on the tops of my lungs but nothing else when i finally got into a lung specialist here in california it was a yr after my last ct scan i thought i would have good news since it had been so long since my last collapse and i seemed to be getting better but the ct revealed that the blebs had gotten worse and now there were more on my right lung than my left which my left had always been the primary problem the ct also revealed i had scarring throughout both lungs and my specialist told me that it did not look like scarring from smoking which i had quit in 2008 he told me he is almost certain that there is something else wrong.. i have been tested for copd and tb and other routine tests but so far they have found nothing even the lung function tests have come back fine he is now looking at scarcoid and valley fever and i will find out on the 10th those results also i have done another ct i am very nervous about the days to come but i am wondering if there is any hope in finding out what is wrong and what can cause lung scarring to spread so quickly.. does anyone know what can happen if they do not find the cause and the scarring keeps spreading is there anything i can do? Thanks in Advance,
The blebs are not caused by anything - they're genetic. Think of your lung as a balloon, with a weakness in the rubber - over time of inflating deflating the weaknesses eventually rupture and lo and behold - a spontaneous pneumothorax. There's nothing scarier than not being able to breathe suddenly.
Apparently the typical patient presenting with spontaneous pneumothorax is a young white male of a thin/slender build (none of which I am though). If you are having 3 or 4 in the time frame you mentioned, there's a very strong probability you will have more.
I had my first on my left side about 24 years ago, then a second on my right side about 15 years ago, a third on my left side (again) about 10 years ago, and a fourth, again on my right side last year.
My first I had a chest tube inserted and after about a week my lung reinflated. The 2nd and 3rd I was just aspirated over about a week until the lung stayed inflated. The one last year the lung simply refused to inflate or heal up, even after having a chest tube in, so my doctor recommended pleurodesis, which is basically an operation in which they blow talc into your chest to adhere the lung to your chest wall. This means the blebs can no longer rupture and cause air to leak from the lung into the chest cavity.
I'm not sure what the scarring is, but it almost sounds as though you have been having small ruptures (but not enough to be life threatening) and then when they spontaneously heal up they leave scarring of the tissue.
Apart from trauma leading to a "punctured lung" there's no known actual cause for the ruptures themselves. Some people have a lot in a short time like you've had, and some like myself can go for years between ruptures.
It sounds like it may be very likely your doctor may suggest you have the pleurodesis, as the more scarring to your lung tissues, the less resilient your lungs will be.
Good luck and hope your doc can sort it out for you.
It was my understanding that with a pleurodesis you would automatically loose up to 30% of your lung function. My first (left sided) pneumothorax in 2008 as well. This year (2013) I had another that resulted in a bulla resection when the lung failed to re-inflate with the chest tube. I was told that I would eventually have to have the same procedure on the right lung. I was also told there was nothing I could do to prevent this... I do not smoke. The last pneumo was caused by a simple common cold. It had been the first cold I had caught in years. I am now raising my 3 year old twin grandsons and know that it is just a matter of time before we catch our next cold. Considering the fact that I lost over half of my left lung, how much lung could really afford to lose on the right without compromising my quality of life? I feel fine and have from the beginning. I only suffered a slight shortness of breath with the second pneumo and none with the first. With the first I thought I had pulled a muscle in my shoulder or was having muscle spasms of some sort.
It was my understanding that with a pleurodesis you would automatically loose up to 30% of your lung function. My first (left sided) pneumothorax in 2008 as well. This year (2013) I had another that resulted in a bulla resection when the lung failed to re-inflate with the chest tube. I was told that I would eventually have to have the same procedure on the right lung. I was also told there was nothing I could do to prevent this... I do not smoke. The last pneumo was caused by a simple common cold. It had been the first cold I had caught in years. I am now raising my 3 year old twin grandsons and know that it is just a matter of time before we catch our next cold. Considering the fact that I lost over half of my left lung, how much lung could really afford to lose on the right without compromising my quality of life? I feel fine and have from the beginning. I only suffered a slight shortness of breath with the second pneumo and none with the first. With the first I thought I had pulled a muscle in my shoulder or was having muscle spasms of some sort.
that's a very serious issue and question and I would think asking a Pulmonary doctor such questions would be more appropriate then relying on non-medical strangers
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