spontaneous pneumothorax advice

Thread view:

Enable EMail Alerts

Start New Thread

Thread rating:

google.com@davezanni.org - 17 Oct 2005 18:27 GMT

6 days ago I had a spontaneous pneumothorax. I've had them before over
the years and only went to the hospital once (the first time). This
time seems a bit different from the others, however, in that (1) it's
on the left lung whereas all the other times its been on the right
lung, and (2) this time I'm caught without insurance.

The severity of it doesn't seem bad. Of course at first it was painful
to walk, but now it's not too bad. I walked around about 5 hours
yesterday (went to the zoo) and the lung irritated me, but didn't much
slow me down.

Nevertheless, I'm still annoyed that the problem has persisted for so
long. All the other times (exept the first) I just waited it out and
the air in the pleural space was completely absorbed (or so it seemed
to me) in a few days. This time, however, the problems seems rather
more persistent.

I'm just wondering how long you think I should wait for my poor lung to
reinflate? I can live with the irritation of it for a while so long as
I'm not doing myself any harm. Is there a chance that the air in the
pleural space won't reabsorbe?

By the way, I'm a 30 year-old male, 5' 9", 140 lbs. In otherwise good
condition.

Thanks,
~daveZ

Reply to this Message

David Rind - 18 Oct 2005 02:40 GMT

> 6 days ago I had a spontaneous pneumothorax. I've had them before over
> the years and only went to the hospital once (the first time). This
[quoted text clipped - 23 lines]
> Thanks,
> ~daveZ

Assuming that you're actually able to tell for sure that you've had a
pneumothorax, it would be a good idea to get seen for two reasons.

First, a large pneumothorax (for instance, one that completely collapses
a lung) may not reinflate on its own. Usually anything over 15-20% gets
treated by removing the air, so I'm not sure when, if at all, a larger
pneumothorax can be expected to resolve.

Second, having spontaneous pneumothoraces on both sides is a concern,
since if large ones occur at the same time bilaterally the results could
potentially be fatal. For this reason, you would likely want to discuss
options to prevent further recurrences.

Signature

David Rind
drind@caregroup.harvard.edu

Reply to this Message

google.com@davezanni.org - 18 Oct 2005 12:34 GMT

I have zero doubt that this is a pneumothorax. It feels exactly the
same as before. I can feel my lung flopping around in there, and
everytime I drink something, my chest acts as a sounding box,
amplifying digestive sounds.

Thanks for the advice. I'll have to do some searching see what
resources are available to me.

Thanks again,
~daveZ

Reply to this Message