Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary disease or COPD is a disease of the lungs that mainly afflicts smokers.

The Blue and Bloated Syndrome is most typically associated with obese individuals who may suffer from inadequate blood oxygenation. This is most noted while sleeping and manifests in heart and breathing problems.

The main symptoms and signs of the blue and bloated syndrome are some very serious conditions including right heart failure, malfunctioning lungs, emphysema, chronic bronchitis, reduced blood oxygenation during sleep, productive cough, breathing problems, swelling, fatigue, and increased heart rate.

Basically blue and bloated symptom means that there is a lack of oxygen in the blood and this situation is worsened when the person is asleep.

A blue bloater is a person who suffers from recurring episodes of bronchitis. The chronic condition results in decreased ventilation and increased cardiac output. These individuals tend to retain more carbon dioxide and hence the term blue bloater.

A person who is a pink puffer is usually an emphysema sufferer.  This is basically the body’s inefficiency or inability to sufficiently oxygenate the blood due to disorders present in the lungs.

Eventually this leads to weight loss and muscle wasting. A reddish complexion and a puffing experience are characteristics of pink puffers.

A blue bloater is likely to show the following symptoms:

• May have been experiencing a productive cough (with sputum) for 3 to 12 months
• Lips and skin may assume bluish tinge occasionally
• Swelling in arms and legs and distension in veins in the neck.
• The prognosis for a blue bloater is not very good, medically speaking

A pink puffer may show the following signs:

• Person may be thin or underweight
• May breathe through pursed lips
• Increased respiratory rate
• The prognosis of a pink puffer is rather better than a blue bloater

One who exhibits one or more of these symptoms may not necessarily have the Blue and Bloated symptom, nor may they be a Pink puffer.

However, if one does suspect that one may have Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary disease or emphysema, it is important to have a diagnostic consultation with a doctor since early treatment is the best chance that a person has.

Here, we are talking about the kind of breathing problems that are recurrent shortness of breath that is not caused by minor exertions such as walking fast or climbing a few flights of stairs. That could just be due to being in poor condition and being overweight.

On the other hand, you may have a minor ailment like a cold that causes a stuffy nose; however, many causes of breathing difficulties could be due to far more serious problems.

Lung Conditions could cause breathing difficulties: A wide variety of medical conditions that affect the lungs could be the cause of breathing difficulties.

Asthma is a chronically occurring problem that causes the airways of lungs to become swollen and sore, thereby making it difficult to breathe.

This could be an allergic reaction to certain triggers that causes the airways to constrict which causes breathlessness, wheezing, labored breathing, tightness in the chest and the frightening feeling of not getting enough air into the lungs.

Emphysema is a kind of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease which causes damage to the alveoli (air sacs in the lungs). This causes breathlessness and one finds they get quickly winded during any kind of exercise.

Pneumonia, which is an infection that causes inflammation of the lungs, could be the cause of shortness of breath. The infection could be viral, bacterial or fungal.

Heart Disease: A number of different heart problems could also manifest themselves with the sufferer having some breathing difficulties.

The commonest form of heart disease is caused due to the narrowing or hardening of the arteries and/or a blockage in them that prevents the supply of blood to the heart. This is also the major reason for heart attacks.

The major effect that heart disease has is a mismanagement of job or supplying oxygen to the different part of the body, thereby resulting in breathing difficulties.

Anxiety or Panic Attacks: These are another cause for breathing problems. Anxiety can manifest itself in different ways, some of which may help by making us more alert and able, however others can be overwhelming and debilitating.

Chest pain is a severe manifestation that may indicate a critical heart attack. The discomfort might stay in one place, or may extend to the shoulder or back and other nearby areas. At times, it becomes a consistent blunt ache.

Pleurisy, commonly caused by viral infection that shows certain symptoms such as rapid and neritic breathing, chills and fever, severe cough, unexplained weight loss, sore throat followed by pain and swollen joints.

Unfortunately, many people regard this type of disorder to a mild heart problem such as heart burn or angina and taken for granted the possible problems it may entail in the future. Medical histories, physical examinations and diagnostic tests can help determine early signs of this disease.

Treatment of pleurisy is aimed and directed to fully eliminate the underlying cause of this disease, relieve the symptoms and removing the liquid or blood from the pleural space.

Specialists also prescribed certain medications to relieve pleurisy symptoms through intake of paracetamol or certain anti-inflammatory agents and codeine-based cough syrups to alleviate severe cough.

A person who suffers from this is encouraged to start changing their lifestyle consistently for effective treatment and later achieved full recovery.

It is important to note that not all children who fall prey to this bacterial disease will exhibit the distinctive whooping cough; any illness which begins with typical cold symptoms that develop into coughing with difficulty breathing should be evaluated by a health care professional.

Not only is pertussis highly contagious, it can also cause infections in the middle ear, dehydration, pneumonia, seizures, and can be fatal.

In the five year period between 1999 and 2004, 91 infants died from pertussis, all of them younger than 7 months of age. Before the vaccine was developed, 5,000 to 10,000 children died from pertussis in the United States each year.

Children who are less than one year old cannot take the pertussis vaccine. Because the children who are most at risk are too young to be vaccinated, it falls to the adults in their lives to be vaccinated against pertussis.

Adults and adolescents who live with young children, or couples who have young children or who are planning to have a child should have a booster of tetanus, diptheria, and pertussis, usually available as a single injection.

This will not only help prevent this disease in adults, but provide protection for infants and young children as well.

COPD is a progressive health condition that makes the affected persons hard to breathe.

This particular chronic breathing disorder can cause wheezing, chest tightness, coughing that produces large amounts of mucus, shortness of breath and other symptoms. Smoking habit is main risk factor and leading cause of COPD.

According to Lisette van den Bemt from Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Center, The Netherlands,” the link between COPD and depression is found earlier, but this study specifically adds that we found temporal relationship, in clear words; COPD did lead to a greater risk for diagnosis of depression”.

But, it seems that the greater risk of depression is not actually result from having chronic health condition, but it is specific for COPD patients.

According to a study conducted by van den Bemt’s team, almost 999 COPD patients are at high risk of initial diagnosis of depression, 978 are at risk of diabetes and 2494 without any chronic health conditions.

They’ve concluded that the risk of diagnosis of depression is much higher in COPD patients than other individuals with controlled health conditions.

Whether it is due to your allergies, cold or other health issues, relief from cough is very important to make yourself comfortable.

How can you get relief naturally?

If you have wet cough, you don’t need to take care of it because it is mucus cleansing process of your body. But if you have dry cough, it can be really frustrating problem for you.

1. At night, rub bottom of your feet with menthol creams and cover it with socks. You can also generously rub your neck and chest as well to get some relief from cough.
2. Mix equal amount of water and lemon juice and make a consistent lemon solution. Add 1 teaspoon of honey to it and drink the syrup twice in a day.
3. Inhale essence of few essential oils like eucalyptus, cedar wood, black pepper, peppermint or rosemary quite few times in a day.
4. Avoid eating spicy hot foods, sweets, dairy products and also limit alcohol intake.
5. If you have trouble sleeping at night with cough, try taking steam. If you add few drops of essential oil or menthol cream to your steam, the effect will be good.

You may not get immediate relief with these natural remedies, but severity of the condition will be reduced.

You go to the pediatrician for help and learn your child has something called reactive airway disease. The question is how terrified should you be for the health of your child.

There’s no need to panic

First, you’re probably wondering exactly what is meant by reactive airway disease.

Your pediatrician probably tried to explain it to you but doctor’s speak just isn’t effective when you are worried about the health of the most precious thing in your life.

Basically reactive airway disease is a generic term used to diagnose breathing and respiratory problems experienced by young children and infants. In some cases, pediatricians will prescribe asthma medication for the treatment of the disease.

One of the common issues of confusion is that reactive airway disease is the same as asthma so let’s talk about this in more detail.

Is RAD just asthma?

Not always. Basically, physicians want to be really careful about labeling respiratory problems in kids as asthma until they have a chance to see if the problems are chronic. Sometimes breathing and coughing problems can be caused by other issues, such as exposure to chemicals.

Just assuming every wheezing youngster has asthma could cause doctors to overlook other possibilities and could end up keeping your child on medication he or she does not need.

In many cases, however, reactive airway disease does end up being diagnosed as asthma once children get a little bit older and their symptoms don’t go away.

How does reactive airway disease work?

Like asthma, most bouts of RAD are triggered by some type of environmental stimuli. The breathing airways become over-stimulated so they end up narrowing which makes breathing very difficult.

Because controlling the symptoms is dependent on identifying the trigger, doctors often will try to find that as part of the treatment process.

How to deal with the disease?

When you have children, you don’t want to see them suffering and a full-blown reactive airway disease attack can be scary to witness.

Be sure to watch for signs that an attack is coming so you can remove the trigger immediately and can take steps to minimize the problem.

Give the medications required but also have your child drink a lot of warm liquids. The warmth will make the mucous thinner; cold liquids will actually make things worse.

If it becomes persistent, then it becomes more potent to affect any organ in your body including skin, nervous system, eyes, heart and also liver.

This inflammation mainly involves production of tiny lumps of cells in different organs of your body.

These lumps are mainly known as granulomas, because they look more like grains of sand or sugar. These granules like lumps are very small and can be visible only with a microscope.

The symptoms of sarcoidosis mainly depend on the organs that are affected by the inflammation. Some of you can develop the symptoms in specific part of your body like shortness of breath due to lung problems and others can experience vague symptoms. In certain cases, it doesn’t show any signs of the disease.

Early diagnosis can be helpful to prevent complications involved in sarcoidosis!

Sarcoidosis mainly affects your lungs and sometimes you will not feel the symptoms of the disease, until the disease is recognized in your regular chest x-ray. If the inflammation reaches the advanced stage, then it can end up with a cough, which persists for a long time and you can also experience shortness of breath.

Other manifestations which can help you to recognize the disease include:

1. Fever
2. Sudden loss of body weight
3. Red watery eyes
4. If you have this lung disease, then you can notice small red bumps on your skin, especially in certain areas like face, arms or buttocks.
5. You can suffer with a vague feeling of discomfort or dizziness and even experience fatigue more frequently.
6. Arthritis in particular parts like ankles, hands, elbows and also in wrist, is one of the problems which are most commonly associated with the bumps on the skin of affected individuals.

These are some of the common symptoms which are mostly found in a person with sarcoidosis. So, if you notice any of these abnormal health conditions in your body, immediately consult your doctor and take necessary precautionary steps in order to avoid the complication associated with the disease.

However, a regular health check up is very essential for a person, which helps in identifying these kinds of underlying and unidentified problems in your body.

Pulmonary edema is usually associated with heart problem and involves accumulation of fluid and swelling in your lungs.

Human lungs contain large number of tiny elastic air sacs, which normally exchange gases involved in respiration without any problem. But, sometimes, as the pressure in your blood vessels is increased, your lungs are forced to pump certain kind of fluid into these air sacs and prevent them from exchanging oxygen, which results in pulmonary edema.

Most of the cases involving heart disease are mainly due to pulmonary edema. But, the accumulation of fluid can be due to many other reasons such as pneumonia, exposure of your blood vessels to certain toxins and medications and also due to excessive exercising or living at extreme elevations.

Depending up on the reason to develop pulmonary edema, the signs and symptoms to identify the problem usually appear suddenly or it can also be developed gradually over weeks or months.

You can experience these manifestations if the attack is sudden:

• One can experience difficulty in breathing or extreme shortness of breath.
• A feeling of suffocation or drowning and also wheezing for breath.
• You can feel more anxiousness, restlessness and also sense of uneasiness.
• If the accumulation of fluid is severe, then you can cough up with yellow, green frothy sputum that can be sometimes plunging with blood.
• You can also experience excessive sweating.
• If pulmonary edema is caused by coronary artery disease, then it can lead to chest pain.

Signs of pulmonary edema when symptoms develop gradually:

• If you are lying flat, opposed to sitting up, then you can experience difficulty in breathing.
• Repeatedly awakening at nights due to a feeling of shortness of breath.
• Occurrence of more shortness of breath than the usual, when you are physically active.
• When pulmonary edema is developed as a result of congestive heart failure, a condition in which your heart can pump very little blood in order to meet your body’s need, then you can put on a significant body weight. This weight gain is mainly due to accumulation of fluid especially in your legs.

Whenever you observe these signs of disease, immediately consult your doctor without any delay. If you are able to receive prompt treatment at right time, then it can help you in avoiding complications involved in pulmonary edema.

In general, very few amounts of pleural fluid are present in the pleural spaces of your lungs. This fluid is not detectable by your regular health check up or by any routine methods.

When this accumulation of fluid is high in between pleural spaces, then it can lead to several heart or lung disorders such as pleural effusion.

Pleura are the thin membranes that are normally lined to your lungs and also inside your chest cavity. These membranes contain fluids that act as lubrication and also help in the respiration process.

When the accumulation of pleural fluid is more inside these spaces, then it can interfere in the normal functioning of your chest and lungs and results in pleural effusion.

Pleural effusions are very common and according to the estimation given by national cancer institute of United States, approximately 100, 000 are diagnosed with this disorder every year.

Depending on the reason for the accumulation of the fluid, the excess fluid in your pleural spaces is distinguished as either protein poor called transudative or protein rich also known as exudative. These two categories of fluid are very helpful for the physicians to determine the main causes for pleural effusion.

Most specific reasons for transudative pleural effusion include:

1. Congestive heart failure: In almost 40% of patients suffering with pleural effusion, this is the common reason and it is present on both sides of chest. This heart failure is the most common reason for bilateral effusion to occur in an individual and if it affects only one side of your chest, then it could be probably your right portion of heart.
2. Pericarditis: This inflammation of the pericardium is also responsible for the accumulation of fluid in the pleural spaces and can lead to pleural effusion.
3. Liver disease: It has been estimated that about 5% of the patients who are suffering with chronic scarring liver disease can have chances to develop water in their lungs.
4. When too much fluid is accumulated in your body tissues due to kidney disease or any bowel disorder, then this excess fluid can also be responsible for developing pleural effusion.

Pleural tumors, tuberculosis and certain viral and fungal infections in your lungs are some of the causes for exudative pleural effusion.

If you are having any of these abnormal health conditions, then be attentive towards your health and seek proper medical assistance in order to take proper precautionary measures to avoid complications.