Friday, March 1, 2013

Emphysema - Its Three Major Symptoms

By Genny Aaron


There are many lung diseases nowadays, and emphysema is simply one of them. The normal functioning of the lungs has a great deal to do with their shape, so it is important that they are maintained in their proper shape. It is in the lungs where gases are interchanged and the blood is oxygenated.

When the lungs do not function normally, it could mean that the tissue that maintains its shape is malfunctioning or even destroyed. Symptoms will become more observable, and this is our attempt to define what those symptoms are. Be warned, however, that these symptoms will show themselves one at a time, not all in one burst. In truth, they will become more observable one after the other, starting with the simpler ones to the more complicated symptoms.

Now the first major symptom through which the lung disease known as emphysema manifests is that of breathlessness. Since the lung tissue will be experiencing a gradual destruction, that means this disease will also take quite a while before it eventually turns into a full-blown lung disease. At first, it would take a major exertion before breathlessness sets in so it wouldn't be associated immediately with the disease. If left unchecked, the disease would then have the patient experience bouts of breathlessness even when he does not exert any effort at all. If left unchecked, it could even reach the point when the patient will start becoming breathless even when he is sitting or standing still. You can probably dismiss the early stages of the symptom as something that is just normal. These bouts of breathlessness would inevitably become utterly stressful to the point of pain when nothing is done about it. It is at this point when they decide to obtain the proper medical attention.

If you have emphysema, you will also notice a bit of chest expansion going on. This is naturally caused by the disease's tendency to make it difficult for the person to breathe freely. The patient could not breathe properly. Therefore, he has no choice but to expand his chest in order to compensate. One way to judge whether there is chest expansion or not is to take a measurement of the antero-posterior diameter of the chest. If it is bigger than what you'd normally expect, then that is definitely chest expansion.

Skin discoloration is also another symptom of this lung disease. You will see the skin of the patient suddenly turning shades of blue. You will find this to be a symptom common among many lung diseases since there isn't enough oxygenation of the blood. The medical term for this symptom is cyanosis. Just like usual symptoms of lung diseases, they do not happen in a flash. Cyanosis, in the beginning, is barely noticeable. But if you don't do a thing about your emphysema, it could become even worse; the bluish tint on the skin becoming even more glaring.




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