What Causes Pleurisy - Michael Lovy MD


Even though chest discomfort is among the classic symptoms of heart attack, chest pain can have other causes, which may also be life threatening. A trip towards the emergency room will clarify the diagnosis but a full total checkup is needed. Swelling of the pleura, which is the linings surrounding the lungs.

There are two layers of pleura; 1 is covering the lung and also the other is covering the inner wall with the chest. These two layers are kept moist by pleural fluid. Pleurisy is often associated with a pleural effusion that is the accumulation of additional fluid in the space between the two layers of pleura. Pleurisy causes a severe discomfort in the chest brought on by breathing, chest tenderness, cough, and shortness of breath.

Pleurisy can be caused by many circumstances which includes infections, collagen vascular diseases like lupus , cancers like metastatic lung cancer or breast cancer.

Tumors with the pleura, heart failure, lung embolism that is blood clot in a vessel towards the lungs, obstruction of lymph channels, trauma towards the rib fractures or injury from instruments within the chest from an operation or vehicle accident, particular drugs like Hydralazine, Procan, and Dilantin, abdominal processes like pancreatitis, cirrhosis with the liver and lung infection like lung tissue death because of lack of oxygen from poor blood supply.

The chest discomfort of pleurisy is extremely special. It is usually sharp and caused by breathing. The physician can often hear the friction that is created by the rubbing with the two inflamed layers of pleura with every breath. With big amounts of pleural fluid gathering, there may be decreased breath sounds and the chest is dull sounding when the physician slams on it.

A chest x-ray in the upright position and while lying on the side helps diagnose small amounts of fluid. Ultrasound is also a very sensitive method of detecting the presence of fluid. A CT scan can be extremely helpful in detecting trapped pockets of fluid as well as in determining the nature of the tissues surrounding the region of the heart.

By Jonathan Cran


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