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Water in the lungs is a colloquial word for which the correct medical name is pleural fluid. It is mentioned in two cases: when fluid accumulates in the lung parenchyma or in the pleural cavity. Water in the lungs is often a consequence of serious health problems, therefore, regardless of its type, it is mandatory to perform a full diagnosis and start treating the causes of its formation.
Causes and symptoms
Water in the lungs is a common symptom associated with heart disease. The accumulation of fluids within the pulmonary parenchyma can occur in people with angina or aortic valve defects, in patients with mitral stenosis after strenuous exercise, and in people with left atrial insufficiency. It can also be a consequence of complications after a heart attack. A symptom of water in the lungs in this case, there is pulmonary edema, which leads to severe shortness of breath and coughing. During expectoration, foamy discharge with an admixture of blood from small, bursting vessels may appear. It is a directly life-threatening condition. Therefore, such symptoms should be immediately consulted with a family doctor who will guide our treatment further. Make an appointment at the National Health Fund via the halodoctor.pl portal.
Pleural fluid it can be transudate, exudate, blood or lymph.
The reason for the accumulation of fluids in the pleura it can also be exudative pleurisy or lobar pneumonia. The above diseases are manifested by coughing, shortness of breath, chest pain increasing in the supine position, bronchial whistling, fever with chills and general weakness of the body. The pleural fluid it can become infected by the bacteria transported in the blood, turning into pus or creating a pleural empyema. Its appearance may affect the patient’s life.
Another reason for the formation of water in the lungs is a lung cancer that is most often caused by metastasis from other organs. Tumors are usually located in the peripheral parts of the lobes. They can also appear under the pleura and infiltrate it as it grows, which over time leads to the accumulation of fluids in the pleural cavity. The fluid then builds up gradually in large amounts, pressing against the lungs more and more. Due to the fact that this process does not cause pain, the disease is most often detected at an advanced stage of development, after the patient consults the doctor complaining of increasingly strong, persistent dyspnea. This is often the case pleural water is the first detected symptom of neoplasm, and only further diagnostic tests show the picture of neoplastic disease and its metastases.
Treatment
It is necessary to implement the correct treatment is to identify the cause and the amount of lingering in the pleura fluid. In a situation where there is a small amount of fluid in the pleura, conservative treatment is applied, consisting in finding the cause responsible for this symptom and its removal. This should be enough for the water to absorb itself. However, when a doctor detects large amounts of fluids during the examination, and their levels continue to increase, it becomes necessary to pull them off water from the lungs with the help of drainage. The secretion removed in this way is then used for diagnostic tests to determine its composition and initiate appropriate treatment.
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