Forums >Health and Nutrition>collapsed lung
Yikes... that's nothing to take lightly. Hope the recovery goes well.
My wife had a collapsed lung (couple times over the course of a couple years) and finally had to have surgery where they effectively glued the lung to the rib cage to plug the hole(s) and stop it from collapsing again.
Feeling the growl again
When I was in HS one of the best runners on a nearby team had one of those; IIRC it was quite serious for him. It happens.
There are worse things in life than missing a race. Be glad they caught it and you are OK.
"If you want to be a bad a$s, then do what a bad a$s does. There's your pep talk for today. Go Run." -- Slo_Hand
I am spaniel - Crusher of Treadmills
So I just wanted to give an update in case anyone encounters the same problem.
In late May I suffered a collapsed lung. Long story short I had a pleurectomy or whatever the procedure is called. Basically they entire the chest cavity though a small incision, cut away the problem spot, and then scar the pleural cavity so it will heal directly to the lung. I stayed in the hospital for a week and then was off running for three weeks. After taking those three weeks off I ran a few 30 mile weeks.
Then, once I was pretty much 100%, I went back in to have a preventative surgery on the other lung(6AUG). Another week in the hospital and then only two weeks off before I jumped back to 30 mile weeks. At the end of this month, 27SEP) I have a 24 hour run. That will be about a 7.5 week recovery period.
So anyone who may read this and suffer from a spontaneous lung collapse, also called spontaneous pneumothorax, it's not the end of the world, it's just a set back of several weeks.
Glad to hear you recovered well. Good luck on the race!
Damaris
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. ...So anyone who may read this and suffer from a spontaneous lung collapse, also called spontaneous pneumothorax, it's not the end of the world, it's just a set back of several weeks...
.
...So anyone who may read this and suffer from a spontaneous lung collapse, also called spontaneous pneumothorax, it's not the end of the world, it's just a set back of several weeks...
I had a spontaneous peneumothorax 9 years before I started running. It actually happened twice in 7 days and then I had the thoracotomy as described in other posts. I too thought it was a serious inhibitor to physical activity but the docs say I'm good to go. My symptoms were very insignificant, I had a sore shoulder and a dry hack - I thought I had bronchitis.
2013 -Sub 2:00 for 1/2 marathon
Good Bad & The Monkey
That seems awfully aggressive therapy for an isolated unilateral spontaneous pneumothorax...
I'm running somewhere tomorrow. It's going to be beautiful. I can't wait.
Poor baby
First one happened on a Tuesday, released from Hospital on a Friday. Happened again the next day. Had large blebs on my lung and they did the surgery. The blebs on the other lung were just as large. I've got great medical insurance. I'm a Soldier. I'm also on Jump status so I couldn't risk jumping out of an airplane and taking the impact shock of a 20 foot per second descent rate. That kind of blow to the chest could cause a recurrence.
That makes more sense.
And: thank you for your service!
dpar,
glad you're feeling better.
I'm also a spont. pneumothorax survivor. Happened when I was 17 and flipping burgers (I was running 30-40 mpw at the time). Pain was exactly as you described, I was also short of breath and ER doc nailed the differential in minutes (unusual in my hometown). Only 30% collapse and there was no intervention, it healed and re-inflated itself.
I was probably not the runner Spaniel referred to, but could have been, and the injury did put an early end to my HS running career.
25 years on and no recurrence. apparently these are somewhat common in us taller, thin types.