Pleuritic Chest Pain Causes, Treatment & symptoms
Pleuritic or Pleurisy means inflammation of the pleura (lungs), when an infection or damaging agent irritates the pleural surface, inflammation occurs. Pleurisy affects the pleura which cause a ‘pleuritic‘ sharp stabbing chest pain. Coughing or breathing-in make the pain worse, this causes the two parts of the inflamed pleura to rub over each other. The different conditions can give rise to pleurisy. The following list of Pleuritic Chest Pain causes, treatment and symptoms represents the most common sources of pleural inflammation.
Pleuritic Chest Pain Symptoms:
Sharp or stabbing pain chest pain is the main symptom of Pleuritic Chest Pain, this pain sometime may be felt in the shoulder. With deep breathing, coughing or sneezing, and chest movement gets the pain worse. Sometimes a fairly constant dull ache is become. One may have other symptoms depending on what’s causing the pleurisy.
- Coughing
- Shortness of breath
- Fever and chills
- Rapid breathing (tachypnea)
- Unexplained weight loss
- Cyanosis
- Sore throat followed by pain and swelling in the joints
Pleuritic Chest Pain causes:
- Many different conditions can become the cause of pleurisy; viral infection is the common cause of this disease. There are other Pleuritic Chest Pain causes here,
- Bacterial infections like pneumonia and tuberculosis and other bacterial or viral respiratory infections
- Autoimmune disorders, including systemic lupus erythematosus, rheumatoid arthritis, and sarcoidosis
- diseases, including cancer, pancreatitis, liver cirrhosis, Lung cancer, including lymphoma and heart or kidney failure
- Other lung diseases like Cystic Fibrosis, sarcoidosis, asbestosis , lymphangioleiomyomatosis, and mesothelioma
- Chest injuries, injury from a rib fracture, collapsed lung, esophagus rupture, blood clot, or material such as asbestos
- drug reactions, from certain drugs used to treat tuberculosis (isoniazid), cancer (methotrexate, procarbazine), or the immune disorders mentioned above (hydralazine, procainamide, phenytoin, quinidine)
- Pulmonary embolism, a blood clot in the blood vessels that go into the lungs
- Familial Mediterranean fever, an inherited condition that often causes fever and swelling in the abdomen or lung
- Inflammatory bowel disease
- Infection from a fungus or parasite
- Heart surgery, especially coronary artery bypass grafting
- Can occur with no illness or infection
Some cases of Pleuritic Chest Pain are idiopathic, meaning the cause cannot be determined.
Signs and tests: The doctor uses a stethoscope to listen to the lungs for abnormal sounds.
- Rales may be occurwith pneumonia
- Rhonchi may occur with pneumonia or bronchitis
- Friction rub is a rough scratchy sound
- Decreased breath sounds may indicate fluid around the lung
Tests: The following tests may be performed
- X-ray of the chest
- Ultrasound of the chest
- CBC (may help determine if the infection is caused by a bacteria or virus)
- Thoracentesis (a collection of fluid from thechest cavity)
Treatment:
Treatment depends on cause of Pleuritic Chest Pain. Viral infections usually run their course without medications when Bacterial infections are treated with antibiotics.
The Pleuritic Chest Pain is treated by analgesic and anti-inflammatory drugs such as acetaminophen, ibuprofen, and indomethacin. A painful cough is controlled by codeine-based cough syrups. A person who has Pleuritic Chest Pain should try to breathe deeply and cough to clear any congestion otherwise pneumonia will occur. In the recovery process Rest is also important to aid.
The underlying cause defines the treatment used to cure pleurisy. Particular therapies designed for more chronic illnesses which can cause pleurisy to subside. The fluid is caused by tumors of the pleura, it may occur again quickly after it is drained.
Antitumor medicines will stop further fluid buildup, otherwise the doctor may seal the pleural space. This is pleurodesis, through a chest tube pleurodesis involves the drainage of all the fluid out of the chest. A substance is inserted into the pleural space through the chest tube. This substance irritates the surface of the pleura. This causes the two layers of the pleura to squeeze shut so there is no room for more fluid to build up.
Chemotherapy or radiation treatment also may be used to reduce the size of the tumors. If congestive heart failure is causing the fluid buildup, treatment usually includes diuretics and other medicines.
Prevention:
Preventing Pleuritic Chest Pain is a matter of providing early medical attention to conditions that can cause pleural inflammation. First the person should prevent the pleurisy by appropriate antibiotic treatment of bacterial respiratory infections and by maintaining a healthy lifestyle and avoiding exposure to harmful substances (for example, asbestos), which are general preventative measures.
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