Signs and Symptoms of Emphysema | Treatment Options

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What are signs and symptoms of emphysema, and what are the currently treatments to treat this health condition? Well, emphysema is one of popular COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease), which is usually pretty common in smoker. The disease can make patient be difficult to take a breath. Another popular type of COPD is chronic bronchitis which is usually characterized by a long-term cough (followed with mucus). Some individuals with COPD may experience a combination of both diseases.

You might also like to read the previous posts about pulmonary fibrosis and pulmonary hypertension, before continuing! There is about over 10 million people in the United States who have COPD. In fact, both chronic bronchitis and emphysema are the 4th leading number of death in this country.

Causes of emphysema other than smoking!

In fact, smoking is bad activity that dominates the cause of this disease. Some studies found that emphysema risk is 6 times higher in smoker if compared to individuals who don’t smoke. But unfortunately, the exact mechanism why smoking can destroy the lung (particularly for the air sac lining) is still not known.

But, there are also some heavy smokers who don’t experience emphysema. It suggests that more studies are required to confirm and find clearly answer why some smokers have this disease, while other don’t. However, smoking is very bad for health, and all smokers will experience many bad effects that can lead to potentially life-threatening.

In essence -- many cases of this disease is usually caused by exposure to airborne irritants over time (long-term exposure), including; silica dust, air pollution, manufacturing gas/fumes, and marijuana/tobacco/cigarette smoke.

Other causes may include:

1. Long-term exposure to smoke of cooking fire due to poor ventilation.
2. Frequent exposure to amounts of secondhand smoke, particularly for high amounts of secondhand smoke.

Another cause is lack of AAT (alpha-1 antitrypsin)! It is one of pretty common causes of emphysema in children (young age) or adults who don’t smoke. AAT is a kind of protein that naturally circulates in the blood. It can give a significant contribution to protect white blood cells from destroying normal tissues.

AAT deficiency is often associated with a certain genetic condition. Individuals with alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiencies and they are also smoker, their risk of having signs and symptoms of emphysema will increase significantly. Some experts believe that there are about 3-2 percent of patients with emphysema also experience alpha-1 antitrypsin deficiencies.

In addition, patients who suffer from emphysema due to AAT deficiencies usually also experience problems associated with liver.

How do you get emphysema disease?

The disease can occur when there is irreversibly damaged in your lungs (the delicate linings of air sacs (alveoli)). And as mentioned before, this condition is often caused by the toxins from cigarette smoking. The damaged lungs develop over years.

When the air sacs of your lungs are destroyed /damaged, the sacs become bigger in size due to the breakdown of their walls. The larger size of sacs can lead to poor amounts of O2 in the blood. And then this condition will lead to breathing-problems, especially shortness of breath which tends to be worse over time. And unfortunately, the damaged alveoli cannot be reversed /replaced!

To find out the damaged air sacs (alveoli), below is helpful picture from ‘HealthWise’:

Image credit © to Healthwise

Signs and symptoms of emphysema

The signs of emphysema are the term used by doctor to help make a diagnosis. These signs are usually asked by doctors to identify this disease and its stage level. And for the symptoms of emphysema, they can describe what a patient feels when having this disease.

#Signs of emphysema

Many signs of this long-term (chronic) lung disease usually develop or can be clearly noticed at the advanced stages. Some of these signs may include:

1. Oxygen (O2) deficiencies in the blood (hypoxia /hypoxemia).
2. Malnutrition! In advanced stages of emphysema, muscles tend to slowly waste away.
3. Hypercarbia! This is a kind of health problem that usually characterized by too much CO2 in the blood. This is caused by a failure condition to properly exhale CO2.
4. The body’s patient creates an excessive red blood cells & hemoglobin to carry O2 in the blood. This is often familiar called ‘Polycythemia’.
5. Low O2 in the blood may also lead to the rounded tips of the fingers (or familiar known as ‘clubbing’).
6. In severe stage, lack of O2 in the blood may also cause blue-tinged lips (cyanosis).
7. Difficulties in breathing also can make patient take rapidly-breathing via pursed lips.
8. The lung expansion can cause larger rib-cage, particularly from front to back -- this condition is also familiar known as ‘barrel chest’!

#Symptoms of emphysema

The symptoms are slowly progressive, in other words they tend to get worse over time (particularly for smoker who don’t stop smoking). If you have been diagnosed with emphysema and you are smoker, you need to quit smoking as earlier as possible!

Either smokers or nonsmokers will experience the slowly loss function of lungs with age. But smoking can accelerate this process!

The onset of emphysema usually occurs slowly & gradually. Individuals who are a smoker, they usually start the symptoms in their 45-60 of the age. But unfortunately, the progression of this disease is still not easy to be predicted.

Some people can experience emphysema in faster progress, while others can get it slowly. Some experts believe that genetic may has a significant contribution why some individuals are more susceptible of developing emphysema. This factor may also affect the slowly/quickly progress of emphysema symptoms.

One of the early symptoms of emphysema that can be noticed is you become winded /windless during a previously routine activity. And generally, shortness of breath is the most common symptom of emphysema. It usually results from structurally changes/alterations in the lungs.

Other common emphysema symptoms may include:

1. Many patients also experience cough, and sometimes may also be one of common emphysema symptoms for smokers who have stopped smoking.
2. Wheezing is also another symptom that usually shared with certain health condition, like asthma. And bronchodilators are one of common medicines to treat wheezing. Talk more with your doctor /healthcare provider for more in-depth information!
3. Patient feels breathless when doing certain activity or exercise. And at severe stage, it also can occur at rest. Feeling breathless may be caused by the poor performance of muscles that responsible breathing. In people with emphysema, these muscles tend to work harder and therefore will be tire out more quickly.
4. Chest pain or tightness. It can occur more often during period of breathlessness or when patient doing an exercise. It also may be one of coexisting heart disease symptoms.

And decreased libido, mood disorder (like depression), problems in sleeping, weight loss (lack of appetite) are other less common symptoms which usually will occur more often for people with emphysema at advanced/severe stages.

Emphysema life expectancy and treatment options

As mentioned before, once the air sacs (alveoli) of your lung get damaged -- it is so difficult to reverse or replace them. Therefore, there is no cure for emphysema. However, there are a lot of things that can be explored to manage or relive the symptoms and eliminate the progress of the disease to get worse.

There are 3 popular treatment options for people who have emphysema; medications, therapy, and surgery.

For medications, the common treatment options may include:

1. Antibiotics, which are usually one of common options to treat bacterial infection, particularly if patient experiences pneumonia. This bacterial infection can make COPD or emphysema worse!
2. To relive shortness of breath and coughing, bronchodilators are usually recommended by your doctor. But unfortunately, this option usually cannot work effectively as well as in treating chronic bronchitis or asthma.
3. Another option to help relive shortness of breath is inhaled steroids. But sometimes it may also lead to some side effects, such as; can trigger high blood pressure and weaken the bones.
4. Cessation drugs to help patients who are smoker to stop smoking as earlier as possible.
5. Furthermore, doctors may also recommend using montelukast (a kind of anti-inflammatory medication).

For surgery, this option may be the last choice which usually closely dependent on the emphysema severity. Some common types of this surgery may include:

1. Lung transplantation! It is pretty common option if the severe stage of emphysema doesn’t respond other treatments.
2. Another type of surgery is a surgery procedure to reduce the lung volume. This reduction is purposed to improve breathing by making the remaining lung tissue become more efficiently to work.

And for therapy, there are 2 common options; O2 (oxygen) therapy and pulmonary rehabilitation.

1. Emphysema, especially at severe stage can cause low volume O2 in the blood. Therefore, supplemental O2 therapy is needed for this case.
2. Pulmonary rehabilitation! It is more purposed to teach or train patient how to take a breath with the right techniques. Furthermore, people with emphysema at early stage tend to experience weight gain, while at late stage they tend to have drastically weight loss. Therefore in pulmonary rehabilitation, patients usually also will be educated how to keep their proper nutrition.

Note: don’t get a conclusion on your own to any signs or symptoms that you experience. To get clearly diagnosis and more treatment advices, you need to discuss more with a doctor!
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Reference: WebMD, MayoClinic, and ncbi.nlm.nih.gov