LetsAllLightUp

Emphysema is a form of chronic (long-term) lung disease, usually caused by smoking. Because of lung damage, people with emphysema have difficulty blowing air out.

The major symptom of emphysema is shortness of breath. In most people, symptoms of emphysema are slowly progressive. Emphysema symptoms also include cough and wheezing.

 Symptoms of emphysema are progressive, meaning they can be expected to get worse over time. The rate at which breathlessness worsens depends mainly on whether someone with emphysema continues to smoke.

Signs of Emphysema

Symptoms of emphysema describe what a person with emphysema feels. Signs of emphysema are what doctors look for to help identify emphysema and its severity. Signs of emphysema include:

• Barrel chest: People with emphysema may have a rib cage that's larger than normal, especially from front to back. This results from the lung expansion in emphysema.
• Clubbing: The tips of the fingers may become rounded, because of low blood oxygen levels in advanced emphysema.
• Pursed-lip breathing: To make breathing easier in severe emphysema, people may breathe rapidly through pursed lips.
• Polycythemia: The body produces an excessive amount of hemoglobin and red blood cells, which carry oxygen in the blood.
• Hypoxemia (hypoxia): Low oxygen levels in the blood, detected on pulse oximetry or arterial blood gas testing.
• Hypercarbia: High levels of carbon dioxide in the blood. This results from an inability to exhale carbon dioxide properly in emphysema.
• Cyanosis: Blue-tinged lips, from low blood oxygen in severe emphysema.
• Malnutrition: Muscles slowly waste away in advanced emphysema.

Most signs of emphysema develop only in its advanced stages, when emphysema symptoms are severe.

 The majority of people with emphysema, though, can expect relatively slow progression of emphysema symptoms, provided they quit smoking. 

If you leave before Lyric gets to know you-I will be very angry with you.