Respiratory Conditions
Respiratory conditions affect the breathing system sinuses, throat, airways or lungs.
At the South West Sleep Clinic we can offer advice and treatment for the range of lung and respiratory conditions. Respiratory disease is the most widespread reason for seeing a General Practitioner and indeed for going into hospital.
Chronic or severe respiratory problems can include:
Breathlessness, shortness of breath or dyspnoea is one of the most worrying feelings or symptoms of ill health. There are many reasons for breathlessness and most can be helped after careful assessment.
Below is a link to the NHS website if you have severe symptoms and need urgent advice.
Wheeze is a musical sound made by air flowing through a narrowed or irregular pipe. Normal airflow in the lungs runs in straight lines and is almost silent. When there is an obstruction or narrowing in the airways then the airflow is disrupted and the vibrations produce a musical sound. Low notes occur in the upper airway such as snoring and higher pitched whistling sounds come from the smaller airways. We can all make a wheeze if we squeeze all the air out of our lungs – you will hear it towards the end of the breath.
Asthma is a disease with variable narrowing of the airways causing wheeze, coughing and breathlessness. Usually starting in children with an allergic trigger, it can also start in later life often triggered by a viral respiratory infection and there are some occupational causes.
Usually treated simply with inhaled corticosteroids and pipe openers, there are a large number of recent biologic agents that promise very good control of this disabling disease.
Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease is the combination of Emphsema ( holes in the lungs) and Chronic Bronchitis (persistent mucus production from inflamed or infected airways). These two elements are caused by exposure to burnt tobacco smoke in susceptible people.
Coughing is a normal function to clear the airways. We do this automatically and usually don’t notice it. When a cough becomes persistent and intrusive then it can be very disruptive. Often a cough will disrupt sleep, impair daily life and cause embarassment in social situations – particularly after the COVID pandemic.
There are many common causes that can be helped after specialist assessment backed up by appropriate investigations where nescessary.
Bronchitis is a medical term for mucus produced by the airways from infection or from chronic obstructive airways disease. Chronic bronchitis – bringing up more mucus than usual for more than 3 months a year – is one of the diagnostic features of COPD chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
Catarrh can mean several things to different people. Similar to phlegm it can be a term that means sputum, saliva or disharge from the back of the nose from persistent sinusitis or allergic rhintis. In some cases this can even be due to indigestion or gastro oesophageal reflux of stomach contents that can be felt or tasted as a bitter acidic fluid in the back of the mouth.
Sputum is normally a clear runny mucus that helps the lungs flush inhaled particles out of the airways by the combination of hairlike cilia that wave the mucus up the main airways before being coughed up.
We all make an eggcupful of mucus or so every day and it is simply swallowed as an automatic reflex.
When the sputum becomes discoloured, sticky or increased it may suggest a specific illness.
Medically we call this haemoptysis. It can be very alarming to see bright red blood in your sputum. Although it is usually a small amount it can appear more and is usually not dangerous.
Infections are actually the commonest cause of haemoptysis and although we are concerned to make sure we rule out any cancer or malignancy these are less common than a simple infection. Sometimes the infections may occur in areas of scarred or distorted airways that can be found on CT scanning.
Commonly caused by whooping cough in childhood that damages the growing airways. The airways can lose their hair cells (cilia) that brush the mucus and debris out of the airways and can be a focus for troublesome infections. This can often lead to coughing up blood in small amounts now and then.
Pneumonia is a lung infection usually caused by viruses, bacteria or rarely other triggers.
The infection can be localised to a specific area of the lung (lobar pneumonia) or more generally throughout the airways (bronchopneumonia)
Sometimes a persistent infection may arise from a structural abnormality in the lung or from immune deficiency but most pneumonias are cleared with time and simple courses of antibiotics when a bacteria is confirmed.
Lung Cancer is a common cancer in the lung usually caused by exposure to tobacco smoke. Often presenting with non specific symptoms there are NHS screening programmes starting up to identify these earlier in high risk patients. Usually your GP will refer you as a 2 week wait patient urgently if there is any concern about a lung cancer.
If you’re struggling with any one of the listed symptoms don’t hesitate to get in touch
via email info@thelunggroup.co.uk
or telephone 07934 987939
If possible we ask that you request a referral letter from your GP to be sent to Dr JCT Pepperell at Parkside Private Patient Wing, Musgrove Park Hospital, Taunton, TA1 5DA