Can you explain more succinctly What is pneumothorax?

Abstract: Patients with pneumothorax who have a large amount of air or have extensive lung disease are often unable to lie flat. If lying on the side, the affected side of the pneumothorax is forced to relieve the shortness of breath. The degree of dyspnea is related to the amount of fluid and the extent of the original lung lesions.

Patients with pneumothorax often have predisposing factors such as heavy weighting, breath-holding, and strenuous exercise, but there are also patients who have pneumothorax in sleep, and the patient suddenly feels chest pain, shortness of breath, breathlessness, cough, but less sputum, and a small amount of closed pneumothorax has shortness of breath first, but gradually stabilizes after a few hours, and X-ray may not show lung compression.

If the patient has a large amount of air or has an extensive lung disease, the patient is often unable to lie flat. If lying on the side, the affected side of the pneumothorax is forced to relieve the shortness of breath. The degree of dyspnea is related to the amount of fluid and the extent of the original lung lesions.

In the presence of pleural adhesions and impaired pulmonary function, chest pain and shortness of breath may be evident even in a small amount of localized pneumothorax.

Tension pneumothorax due to the sudden increase in intrathoracic pressure, lung compression, mediastinal displacement, severe respiratory and circulatory disorders, the patient's expression is nervous, chest tightness, and even arrhythmia, often struggle to sit up, irritability, cyanosis, cold sweat, rapid pulse, collapse, and even respiratory failure, unconsciousness.

When pneumothorax is complicated by severe asthma or emphysema, symptoms such as shortness of breath and chest tightness may not be noticeable, so it is necessary to carefully compare them with the original symptoms and perform a chest x-ray. Physical appearance shows more movement of the trachea to the unaffected side, and signs of air accumulation in the chest.

Signs of pneumothorax: in patients with a small amount of pneumopleurosis, there are often no obvious signs. When there is a large amount of air, the patient's chest is full, the intercostal space widens, and the respiration is weakened; Speech tremor and voice resonance are diminished or absent.

The trachea and heart move to the unaffected side. Tympanum is observed on the affected side. Right-sided pneumothorax can cause hepatic dullness to shift downward.

Auscultate decreased or absent breath sounds on the affected side. In the presence of a fluid pneumothorax, the sound of intrathoracic water vibrating may be heard. If there is excessive blood loss, blood pressure drops, and even hemorrhagic shock occurs.

If it is less, it will feel a slight pain. If you have a lot of words, it hurts when you breathe.

The pleural cavity is composed of a parietal and visceral layer of the pleura, and is a closed potential space that does not contain air. Any reason that causes the pleura to break down and air enters the pleural space is called a pneumothorax. At this time, the pressure in the pleural cavity increases, and even the negative pressure becomes positive pressure, which compresses the lungs, obstructs the venous blood flow back to the heart, and produces different degrees of lung and heart dysfunction.

According to the pathophysiological changes, it can be divided into closed (simple), open (communication) and tensile (hyperbaric).

Filtered air is manually injected into the pleural space to identify intrathoracic disease on x-rays, called an artificial pneumothorax. Pneumothorax caused by chest trauma, acupuncture**, etc., is called traumatic pneumothorax. The most common pneumothorax is the rupture of lung tissue and visceral pleura due to lung disease, or the bullae and emphysema bubbles near the lung surface burst on their own, and air from the lungs and bronchial tubes escapes into the pleural space, which is called spontaneous pneumothorax.

The most common is traumatic pneumothorax.

Easily**, unless thoracoscopic surgery is done. I did it last year.

Pneumothorax is the pain in the chest, there is no tenderness outside, or the pain of muscle strain, you can refer to the symptoms when I had pneumothorax: stabbing pain after the night of the sudden attack, it is difficult to walk, if you endure it, you can walk; The next day, after I took the anti-inflammatory, I walked slowly and vaguely felt a pain in my chest (like a big stone dragging my heart), the road surface should be flat, otherwise it would be painful, such as going down the stairs, you must be slow, going up the stairs, although it was very slow, but it was very wheezing (mainly because I was 90% compressed in my left lung at that time, and I only knew it after taking an X-ray); Inhale deeply, with a murmur in your throat; increased respiratory rate; rapid heartbeat (I was around 89 at the time); Different postures have different pain sensations when sleeping at night (for example, if I have compression on the left side of my lungs, then the pain worsens when I turn over on the left side at night, and on the contrary, I will feel the pain significantly relieved when I turn over to the right side; It was a little painful at first, but after a while, I was able to get used to it, but when I pressed my hand on my chest, I felt like water was stirring in it).

If you are a very strong person, then others will not be able to see that you have pneumothorax, but they will feel that something is wrong with you (only those who are observant will find out). Although the movement is slow, some tasks can still be done as usual, such as cleaning, office-like work, and it is completely OK if it is not strenuous or not.

One is to remind you that spontaneous pneumothorax is not an accident insurance, and it must be reimbursed for social security (I can only take social security if I am a student).

Condition analysis: It refers to the entry of gas into the pleural space, causing a state of pneumothorax.

Guidance: Bed rest, oxygen, analgesia, cough suppressant, and antibiotics if infected** should be given. For patients with active internal medicine** lung still unable to re-expand, chronic pneumothorax or bronchopleural fistula can be considered for surgery**. Reverse pneumothorax can be treated with pleural adhesions.