- Sarcoidosis of the lungs - the most common form of the disease
- Symptoms
- Diagnosis and treatment
Symptoms
The course of sarcoidosis is unpredictable. Exacerbation and remission of the disease may suddenly begin and end suddenly. Also, there may come a sudden spontaneous spontaneous cure. Onset of the disease can be asymptomatic, gradual or sharp.
Intrathoracic form of sarcoidosis, ie lymph nodes of the mediastinum, bronchus, lung, often asymptomatic, especially early in the disease, and only occasional (on another occasion) X-ray examination reveals sarcoidosis.
What can we expect?
The disease develops more gradually. The patient appears general weakness, fatigue, sweating, decreased appetite (and therefore the weight of the body), muscle and joint pain. Characteristically mismatch satisfactory general condition and extensive damage lung tissue and hilar lymph nodes.
But sometimes (quite rare) disease begins acutely with high fever, pain in the joints
Joint pain - how to understand what is going on?
. In some cases, there are signs of arthritis (joint inflammation) and dry cough. With increasing cough sputum appears. However, the cough is usually dry in sarcoidosis. With an increase of intrathoracic lymph nodes, it can be caused by compartment syndrome. At the same time, in the later stages of coughing is a consequence of extensive interstitial lung changes, and relatively rarely - a consequence of the pleura lesions.
To join cough chest pain
Chest pain: look for the cause
.
Chest pain in sarcoidosis has no direct connection to the nature and scope of change identified.
You may receive a feeling of discomfort in the back, burning in the interscapular region, heaviness in the chest.
Signs
One of the signs of pulmonary sarcoidosis is also increasing shortness of breath.
Shortness of breath on exertion increases, the patient has cyanosis (blue) lips and nail phalanxes of hands. Shortness of breath can have various causes - due to decrease in lung function, dysfunction of the respiratory center in the central nervous system, metabolic disorders in the body involved in the arrest. The patient explains the shortness of breath, as a feeling of lack of air.
In cases where the granulomas in the lungs for a long time do not undergo the reverse process, there is an intensive development of connective tissue and the development of respiratory insufficiency. At stage IV sarcoidosis half of patients with sarcoidosis
Sarcoidosis - how to protect themselves?
easy to combine with other organ and tissue or becomes generalized. Patients with the complain of general weakness, pain in the chest and around the heart, poor appetite, weight loss. Coughing often with the release of muco-purulent sputum. Growing shortness of breath, especially during physical exertion.
When radiographic stage IV sarcoidosis is characterized by the presence of significant sclerotic changes in the lungs. Sclerotic processes typically distributed over the entire surface of the lungs and are combined with the sealing portions of lung tissue.
At the same time it revealed emphysema - a persistent expansion of the pulmonary alveoli, which are no longer actively involved in the act of breathing. Emphysema can be spread to all parts of the lungs. The roots of the lungs (the place of entry into the lungs bronchi nerves and blood vessels) are sealed, they also grows connective tissue, merge with sclerotic changes in the root zone of the lungs, sometimes shifting toward areas of sclerotic changes, and therefore a reduction in the size of the lungs. In some cases, an exacerbation of the lymph nodes
Lymph nodes - what keeps our immune system
acquire the same form as in the early forms of the disease, but many patients in this stage they are not defined.
Sometimes granulomas appear in the upper respiratory tract - in the nasal cavity, on the tonsils, trachea and bronchi. In this case, in the nasal cavity may receive thickening, sometimes purulent crusts in deeper layers - typically granulomatous changes. Patients appear shortness of nasal breathing, dry nose and mouth, sometimes purulent discharge, nasal bleeding.
At the beginning of vulgar century it was discovered and characteristic lesions of the tonsils. It often affects the bronchi - by squeezing the walls of the surrounding tissues swell, thicken and become less passable. The walls of the bronchi develop granulomas.
