Emphysema??

Question

My Mother in-law has emphysema from smoking... she still continues to smoke, (her family members have tried everything to get her to stop smokeing tho) I am not sure what emphysema is tho... can someone tell me all about the dieses or tell me a website to go to that will? thanks

Answer 1

Everyone stops smoking eventually

The trick is to stop while you are still alive (and preferably while you have some lung function left)

Here's the wiki page
The British Thoracic Society has a pamphlet thing you can download and it's pretty easy to understand and the Arizona Respiratory Centre has a good site.

Emphysema is a disease of the lungs

It is most commonly caused by smoking but there are some other minor causes which contribute such as alpha-1-antitrypsin deficiency, but these are rare. Smoking is by far and away the biggest cause of emphysema.

It occurs in the aging population much more so than in the young but this tends to depend on the amount of smoking and the age it was started. The more you smoke, the younger you are when the emphysema hits.

The lung tissue is destroyed - the normally elastic walls of the alveoli (little balloons of air to get oxygen into the blood) become more rigid and it is harder to get the stale air out so you can't get fresh air in.

Most emphysema patients therefore suffer from Shortness Of Breath and they have to puff and puff (hyperventilate) to get their breath when they exert themselves.

They can sometimes feel as if their chest is tight or even complain of pains (rarely).

The usual tests for emphysema are:

tests for oxygen extraction - the fingertip oxygen saturation probe and the arterial blood gas test

chest x-ray to make sure there isn't any other thing like a pneumonia or pneumothorax (both of which are more common in patients with emphysema) and to rule out cardiac failure

sometimes blood tests to look at a white cell count (looking for pneumonia again)

There are things that can be like emphysema: asthma, bronchitis (both of these are closely related and smoking related illnesses), but then you can have cardiac failure (water on the lung), pulmonary embolus ... anxiety (this is a tricky one as many emphysematous patients develop anxiety disorders)

Treatment is by inhaled medications - ventolin (salbutamol) and other bronchodilators, steroids (budesonide, fluticasone, etc)

and by oral medications - sometimes oral steroids, antibiotics if there is an infection. In the past, theophylline was used.

I hope that all helps.

Answer 2

This is what I tell my patients. Emphysema is a disease , where the lungs are damaged. A simple way to think about the disease is to think of the lungs as latex balloons. These balloons (lungs) have lost the elastic resistance. So people with this disease can take a breath in but have a hard time letting it out. Hence forth they have a hard time breathing. The worst thing about this disease is that lung tissue does NOT regenerate. It would be best to have her stop smoking and try and recoup the lung tissue she has remaining.

Answer 3

Just to clarify, emphysema is associated with smoking, however, there is also a genetic disease that can cause emphysema without the person every being a smoker. If she is a younger person (50's) i would check with into alpha 1 antitrypsin deficiency. This is a genetic disease that can cause numerous problems, not limited to the lungs. This is something that i know from personal experience, my dad passed it to my siblings, it took 3 years for the diagnosis, he was only 48.

Answer 4

Emphysema/COPD is a lung disease in which the lungs have become so damaged from smoking that they lose their elastic recoil and cannot exhale the entire breath they took in. The remaining air becomes trapped into the lungs always keeping the lungs somewhat inflated. With every breath more and more air becomes trapped and more and more inflation occurs.

Answer 5

WebMD or emedicine.com

Answer 6

try webmd.com or mayoclinic.com, good luck