What symptoms has emphysema?

Emphysema, the symptoms of which are quite easily recognize, can occur for many reasons. But to correctly diagnose the illness and prescribe treatment can only a doctor.

Due to poor ecological situation on the planet from respiratory failure suffers from a lot of people. Emphysema is a condition of the body in which tissue in the lung is stretched and cannot shrink. Consequently, the output of carbon dioxide from the blood and the supply of it oxygen is disturbed. Tissue in the lungs, feel the oxygen deprivation and begin to die. The disease can hurt the lungs as a whole or only some parts.

In order to understand the nature of the disease, you need to determine which form carries the disease. Emphysema is primary and secondary. In the first case it develop as a separate disease, and in the second, as a complication after the transferred diseases of lungs. As a rule, the causes of secondary emphysema is a chronic bronchitis or bronchial asthma. A significant role in the development of the disease play an illness of the lungs (tuberculosis), as well as Smoking, working in heavily polluted areas and genetic propensity.

Emphysema is a serious disease, and if time does not begin treatment, the person may appear not only breathing but also heart failure. Disease a long period can proceed unnoticed, but then be shown in running form, in this case without surgical intervention to manage is unlikely to succeed. The risk of developing emphysema is increased in people after 55 years, most often the disease kills men. Perhaps this gender susceptibility to disease due to the greater popularity of Smoking among men than among women.

Symptoms of the disease

About the existence of such diseases as emphysema, many people do not know, yet do not collide, and the symptoms and consequences of it rather unpleasant. Symptoms of emphysema is always pronounced, and is rarely confused with a manifestation of some other disease.

The majority of patients says that the symptoms of emphysema they began to recognize in the forced position of the body - the abdomen, which they had to adopt to get relief from suffocation. Man that is sick with emphysema, had to sleep sitting up, as the horizontal position brings discomfort and become a cause of severe tightness in the chest.

The main symptoms of emphysema are as follows:

• shortness of breath (if the disease is hereditary, dyspnea may occur even at a youngage for no reason);
• cyanosis (bluing of extremities and tongue);
• decreased breath sounds;
• weight loss;
• fatigue and decreased performance;
• the increase in the volume of the sternum;
• the expansion of the intercostal spaces;
• swelling of the supraclavicular region.

The main symptom of emphysema is shortness of breath, usually they occur after little physical activity and initially is intermittent.

With the development of the disease it will increase, and at the slightest tension, the patient will experience asthma. People that suffer from emphysema, frequently acute, grabbing breaths and long exhalations. Sometimes, even with closed lips, they can feel the exhale. Watching the breastbone of the patient, it can be noted that with the development of the disease it is less and less involved in the respiratory process. In most cases the respiratory movement exercise additional muscles of the neck and chest.

At the location of the disease such as emphysema, the symptoms may vary slightly. For example, if the disease has touched the pulmonary artery, the patient constantly feels a sudden pain in the chest, increased sweating, decreased blood pressure, cough and hemoptysis. In the case when emphysema is localized in the carotid artery, the man accompanied by headaches and dizziness, disturbed coordination of movements, may develop dizziness and a speech impediment. If the disease involved mezenterialna artery, the patient feels a burning pain in the abdomen, bloating as well as liquid and bloody stool.

Hurt renal artery leads to the kidney pain, red urine and oliguria (reduced amount of urine). The worst symptoms are signs of disease of arteries of the extremities. As a result, people will not be able to make any physical actions of the affected limb, possible signs of gangrene on the extremities will appear dark spots or bubbles with the liquid.

Diagnosis and treatment of the disease

If you think you have emphysema, you should address to the doctor pulmonologist, who will be able after their medical history, make a diagnosis and prescribe treatment.

Diagnosis of emphysema involves a set of procedures that accurately determine the stage of the disease.

In addition to the examination (listening and tapping of the sternum), the doctor may prescribe the following studies:

• a chest x-ray;
• Lung CT scan;
• computed tomography of the lungs;
• functional diagnostics;
• commonanalysis of blood, urine and feces;
• analysis of gas composition of blood and polycythemia.

Treatment of emphysema is oxygen, i.e., inhalation of air with high oxygen levels, and, of course, breathing exercises.

Often the patient, the doctor will prescribe antibacterial drugs:

• Atrovent;
• Flomax;
• Theopek;
• Aminophylline;
• Salbutamol;
• Berotek.

The intensity of drug therapy depends on the symptoms often antibiotics can be combined with expectorants and methods of folk medicine. In severe cases doctors have to resort to surgery.

Additional recommendations on the topic

In order for treatment to be effective, the patient must actively participate in the treatment process. The first thing he should do is stop Smoking and reduce physical activity your body, it is possible to change jobs if it is one of the reasons for the development of the disease.

In no case do not self-medicate and do not tighten the visit to the doctor.

Emphysema is a disease, which in advanced forms can cause disability. In any case, you need to be prepared for the fact that completely cure emphysema does not work under any circumstances, as it causes irreversible changes in the human body. The disease can be maintained at the same level and not allow it to progress. People will be forced to take a combination of drugs prescribed by your doctor.

Physical activity can be the favorable outcome to reopen, but completely back to normal life is rare. Life expectancy person with emphysema depends on age, stage of the disease, as well as the degree of compensation of the pathological process of drug drugs. Predictions for people suffering from emphysema are very individual and depend on what care the patient will follow doctor's orders, and regardless of whether he is ready for the sake of his health to make sacrifices and give up some of their habits.