Tag Archive for: Wheezing

What Is Oxygen Therapy?

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Did you know that the air we breathe contains only 20% oxygen? While this amount is generally sufficient for a regular person, people with chronic lung or breathing conditions may find it extremely low. Therefore, when blood oxygen levels are low, you may feel shortness of breath, fatigue or confusion.

Furthermore, in the long term, lack of oxygen in the blood can pose serious health risks, that are better to be prevented than treated. That’s why oxygen therapy was created for people to deliver oxygen to their bloodstream. Let’s take a look at oxygen therapy, how it works, who needs it, the benefits and what it’s used for:

What is Oxygen Therapy?

Oxygen therapy is a treatment that provides additional oxygen to patients who struggle to obtain enough. As you may know, different diseases and ailments can cause a person to not receive enough oxygen. Because of this, oxygen therapy is a viable solution for those people to receive the oxygen their bodies need to function normally.

Who needs Oxygen Therapy?

Simply feeling shortness of breath isn’t always a qualifier for needing oxygen therapy. It’s likely your doctor will require blood tests to study the amount of oxygen in your blood levels. Once your doctor can definitively determine that your blood levels are low, he or she may then recommend you oxygen therapy, whether long-term or for a short period of time.

What are the symptoms of low oxygen?

When you aren’t receiving enough oxygen, you may experience one or more symptoms including rapid breathing, shortness of breath, increased heart rate, wheezing, sweating, and fatigue. These symptoms can negatively impact your daily habits and overall quality of life.

How does Oxygen Therapy work?

The oxygen is usually administered through a breathing tube, a mask or nasal prongs. People with chronic breathing problems may also receive a portable oxygen tank so that they may have access to the oxygen anywhere outside the clinic. There are a few different oxygen therapies that can be prescribed based on a patient’s analysis results, including oxygen gas, liquid oxygen, oxygen concentrators and hyperbaric oxygen therapy.

What is Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy?

In hyperbaric oxygen therapy, you will breathe pure oxygen in a pressurized room or through a pressurized tube, allowing your lungs to gather more oxygen than they normally do. In this pressurized room—or hyperbaric chamber—the air pressure is increased up to four times the normal air pressure level.

What is Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy used for?

Hyperbaric oxygen therapy can be used to treat many different serious infections, wounds and more. Just a few include:

Benefits of Oxygen Therapy

Both oxygen therapy and hyperbaric oxygen therapy deliver incredible benefits to those being treated. When administered regularly or until the doctor deems necessary, oxygen therapy can aid in easier breathing, increase exercise tolerance, improve sex life, and facilitate to safer air travel. Additionally, oxygen therapy can reduce the complications associated with COPD, pulmonary hypertension, heart failure and more by relieving shortness of breath, fatigue, and dizziness. On top of that, for COPD patients, oxygen therapy can even prolong life.

Many people need long-term oxygen therapy to prolong a normal, active life, as oxygen therapy assists in making everyday activities easier and more pleasant. If you feel constant shortness of breath, fatigue, dizziness, or have any chronic lung conditions, don’t hesitate to contact our center to see if oxygen therapy can be helpful for your particular condition.

Crucial Lung Disease Symptoms You Should Know About

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Most of the time a random cough or noisy breathing is not something you’ll immediately pay attention to. However, in many cases underestimated symptoms like these can point to serious lung diseases, ones you want to diagnose and treat as soon as possible. The truth is lung diseases like asthma, bronchitis, or COPD are very insidious and, undiagnosed, can harm your overall health in many unexpected ways. Thus, make sure to know these crucial lung disease symptoms to catch and treat any lung disease while it’s still in the early stages.

Warning Signs Of Lung Disease:

Shortness of Breath: Breathlessness or shortness of breath can be described as difficulty or discomfort breathing. It is also sometimes described as “tightness in the chest.” The medical term for shortness of breath is dyspnea. Don’t get fooled, it is not only a symptom of being out of shape, but it could point to more serious lung conditions such as asthma, COPD, etc.

A Chronic Cough: A cough is considered chronic if it has been disturbing the patient for three months or longer. Although coughing is a normal reflex of the body that helps expel irritants from the airway and lungs, a persistent, chronic cough could be a sign of a serious lung disease. Oftentimes the cough may be painful and can cause soreness in the chest and abdominal muscles. If a cough is severe, it could have enough force to injure the chest wall or even break a person’s ribs. 

Chronic Mucus Production: Much like a cough, mucus, also called phlegm or sputum, is a naturally occurring function of the body that protects from infections or irritants. However, chronic mucus production in the lungs indicates that your body is fighting something off, which could be a warning sign of a more serious condition. Persistent mucus producing coughs that last for a month or longer could be signs of a lung disease.

Coughing up blood (hemoptysis): Blood in a cough could come from the lungs or upper respiratory tract. No matter where it comes from, a bloody cough is a sign of a health problem, and most likely a serious one.

Wheezing: Noisy breathing or wheezing is not just a symptom of being out of shape; it is a sign that something is blocking your airways or making them too narrow. While asthma is claimed to be the most common cause of wheezing, there are many other potential pulmonary causes that should be diagnosed.

Chronic chest pain: Chest pain that has lasted for a month or more, even if it is minor, is a warning sign of a lung disease. Especially if you have chest pain when you breathe in or cough there is likely an issue with your respiratory tract.  

 What To Do?

If you experience any abovementioned warning signs, do not procrastinate! Remember: early pulmonary disease detection contributes to an overall success of your healing process. Consider scheduling an appointment with one of our brilliant Pulmonary Associates of Brandon pulmonologists, who treat a vast array of pulmonary diseases and conditions such as asthma, bronchitis, acute and chronic respiratory failure, lung cancer, pulmonary hypertension, lung infections, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), sleep disorders, and more!