Pneumothorax

Since the second week of February this year I've had air bubbles trapped in my chest and pains either right in the center, under the breast or the shoulder on the left side. It happened spontaneously one night when I was lying in bed, I felt something in my chest and it started to hurt and pop. I've had it on and off since then, but yesterday it was pretty painful and I took painkillers so I'm thinking of going the doctors now. I tried to get an appointment today but by the time I rang there was none.

Do you guys really think it could be from smoking? I'm going to cut completely down on sugar and try exercises on my chest. I may just go a walk-in doctors tomorrow after work because it's becoming really annoying now. Sometimes it doesn't hurt, usually that's with the air bubbles I can feel, it usually hurts a lot when there's no feeling of the air bubbles. Sometimes I can feel them popping right under my breast in between ribs and it moves around.
 
I think you should definitely go and see a doctor, and perhaps do an x-ray of the chest. The crepitation you experience could be a symptom of several possible problems. Hopefully it's nothing, but better check it!
 
While awaiting your doctor consultation:
If it's a spontaneous pneumothorax (without any cause), and if you don't have any difficulty in breathing, then there is chance it heals spontaneously. For that, you have to rest +++, no effort, no use of musical device (using breathing), no bearing of heavy things, diving and apnea, no cough nor sneeze. If you still feel symptomes after 7 days, a drainage must be processed. Usually, a total rest is sufficient. And smoking only after healing obtained. I don't think that smoking is a cause but it's better to avoid toxics going in deep tissues while pneumothorax is still here.
 
Lilyalic said:
Since the second week of February this year I've had air bubbles trapped in my chest and pains either right in the center, under the breast or the shoulder on the left side. It happened spontaneously one night when I was lying in bed, I felt something in my chest and it started to hurt and pop. I've had it on and off since then, but yesterday it was pretty painful and I took painkillers so I'm thinking of going the doctors now. I tried to get an appointment today but by the time I rang there was none.

Do you guys really think it could be from smoking? I'm going to cut completely down on sugar and try exercises on my chest. I may just go a walk-in doctors tomorrow after work because it's becoming really annoying now. Sometimes it doesn't hurt, usually that's with the air bubbles I can feel, it usually hurts a lot when there's no feeling of the air bubbles. Sometimes I can feel them popping right under my breast in between ribs and it moves around.
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I agree with Keit that you get this checked out, Lilyalic. One possibility is that you have popped a rib. This can happen spontaneously in females. I can relate to the pain, as I have been hospitalised twice in the last year or so with pneumonia. All the best.
 
About 10 years ago I had a "spontaneous pneumothorax" also. By "spontaneous" I took it to mean "we don't know what causes it" although the doctor did say that I probably had a bleb on that lung, as nicklebleu mentioned. One other thing he said was that taking oxygen as often as possible would speed up the recovery process. So I guess doing some pipe breathing would help as well. Pipe breathing would at least help your friend to relax a little as it is very painful and quite debilitating. No picking up heavy objects. I couldn't even go grocery shopping for a week or two.

Just before I felt the chest pains I smelt a strange chemical odor. It could have been coincidence but my gut feeling was that I was exposed to something that my lung disagreed with as I've never had any issues before or since.
 
Thank you for the advice guys.

I went to the "walk in" yesterday and they couldn't do much but found out it's not infection etc, there's no weezing of the chest. I'm going to book a doctors appointment tomorrow if I can get one.
I actually found that when I did EE last week it brought back the "air bubbles" or bleb, I hadn't had it for a few days and straight after doing EE it had come back so I've been putting off doing it.
 
Lilyalic said:
Thank you for the advice guys.

I went to the "walk in" yesterday and they couldn't do much but found out it's not infection etc, there's no weezing of the chest. I'm going to book a doctors appointment tomorrow if I can get one.
I actually found that when I did EE last week it brought back the "air bubbles" or bleb, I hadn't had it for a few days and straight after doing EE it had come back so I've been putting off doing it.
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As long as you haven't ruled out a pneumothorax radiographically it's not advisable to do pipe-breathing, as you pressurize your lungs, so any leak would be magnified (similar mechanism than lifting loads). And if they diagnose a pneumothorax the same will apply until completely healed. Also in this case air-travel should not be undertaken.

I think you should get a chest X-ray as soon as possible. Hope that helps.
 
I had a chest x-ray today and was sent to hospital with a small pneumothorax (19mm) from apex..
They've said its strange it's stayed so long and keeps coming back. They've prescribed me with pain killers and booked me in for another x-ray next week to see if it has healed by then.

Considering its been here since February I doubt it'll go away in a week but I want to do all I can to let it heal in this week although I can't go taking a week off work so will try and rest outside of work when I can. Not sure if I should cut down on smoking..

Thankyou for urging me to get it seen.. atleast I know now.
 
I had another X-ray this Thursday and it seems to have healed. It's quite strange actually considering since February it was back and forth, being gone for a few days and then returning.

It has been fine for over a week now, little pains here and there but no "blebs" - the Doc said there may be little parts of the lung still damaged that can't be seen on the X-ray. I'm wondering if it was part of my body saying "Go find out what it is!" and because I ignored it for so long, it kept coming back :headbash:. I have been taking it a little easier physically and trying not the breathe deeply!

Thank you again :hug2:
 
Lilyalic said:
I had another X-ray this Thursday and it seems to have healed. It's quite strange actually considering since February it was back and forth, being gone for a few days and then returning.

It has been fine for over a week now, little pains here and there but no "blebs" - the Doc said there may be little parts of the lung still damaged that can't be seen on the X-ray. I'm wondering if it was part of my body saying "Go find out what it is!" and because I ignored it for so long, it kept coming back :headbash:. I have been taking it a little easier physically and trying not the breathe deeply!

Thank you again :hug2:
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Glad to hear it's sorted itself out :)
 
Thank you for the update.
It's been since february because you kept on doing efforts and deep breathing, that's why it didn't heal. Spontaneous pneumothorax heals spontaneously IF you stop efforts and all things that prevents air (present on the lungs) to go out (example apnea), and things that makes go air in lungs by force (example: playing trump).
It heals in roughly 7 days if you rest in the way you don't force on breathing (see my previous post).
So as to smoking: I don't think you have to give it up, as it doesn't require any breathing effort.
Hope that helps.
 
Usually pneumothorax are the result of trauma, with the spontaneous versions occuring after a bout of extreme laughter, crying or shouting. Its something EMTs look for in stabbings and gun shot wound patients.

Minor cases are generally not serious, I used to get the occasional random chest pain that I've now come to believe was a pneumothorax and it would go away after taking a deep breath.

Good thing you got it checked out and definitely keep your physical exertion to a minimum while it heals. Also may want to avoid deep breathing or extreme emotional upset, if possible. :-)
 
Thanks for the thread all!

I've just been to the doctor's with one of these. Happened this morning randomly whilst i was sat at work and I'm glad to find some information on them here. I'm gonna take it easy for the next week and hope it heals. Next x-ray is in 10 days to check it out.

The doctor had said as others here, I'm more prone to them being tall and skinny. Started mentioning stress until he found out I smoked then it was all pinned on that. I'm going to smoke less but I don't believe that caused it as it seems smokers and non-smokers get it. Would have been interesting to find out more from him, not that he was particularly knowledgeable on it.

Glad everyone else's has healed at least!
 
Been looking at some studies around Pneumothorax incidences and found this one linking it to stress related. It mentions smokers generally been more susceptible again, without much evidence from what I can tell.

The point about avoiding exercise struck me as curious, my own came on quite suddenly and I had no exercise for a day prior to it's occurrence.

ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5714721/

Excerpts:
Therefore, avoiding exercise to prevent another collapsed lung may be useless. Second, smoking was regarded as a risk factor for pneumothorax.26 However, this may not be true in young patients because their smoking rates are lower than others in this report. Nevertheless, smoking should be avoided because young pneumothorax patients may be hidden smokers
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In conclusion, pneumothorax patients may be included in a high-risk group that experiences severe stress. Moreover, post-traumatic stress is prominent in elderly sufferers. Actions to reduce psychological problems in these patients are required and may be particularly urgent in the elderly. At the same time, further large-scale studies to determine any potential causes of the stress are also required.
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Sorry for the double post, it seems I can't find the edit button.
 
Hi,

could these "air bubbles" come out of stress?

Yesterday, my email was hacked - again!

The last time it happened was in April: they hacked my email and consequently my Amazon account. I managed to stop the purchase on Amazon and reported all - nothing happened, they all claim there wasn´t a hack attempt.

Yesterday, my email was hacked again. And again my Amazon account.
But this time "only" damage I see is that ALL my contacts disappeared and I cannot retrieve them on my account.

I spend all morning stressed out - not because I have some super-duper secrets but simply because my privacy was corrupted!
I don´t even read my partner's post or open it, never mind that he will eventually show it to me since he doesn´t understand german that well! I don´t snoop and spy on people on FB and other platforms so this is "an insult" that it happened again.

That´s a short story...

In the evening I started having these "air bubbles" under my right ribs under my breast.
It feels like something is popping inside.
It doesn´t hurt, but it´s highly annoying and uncomfortable.

I´ve already had those but they would disappear the next morning.

This morning they continued.

Could that be related to stress?
 
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