Chronic Cough

Chronic cough refers to the mysterious dry cough that doesn’t go away and is not regarded as a disease. This condition is generally considered to be a symptom of other disorders such as asthma, allergic rhinitis, sinus problems and esophageal reflex of stomach contents. Also there are few rare occasions in which aspiration of foreign objects into lungs would result in chronic coughs.

Also certain medicines are known to cause chronic cough as a side effect. In most instance medications doesn’t seem improve this disease and eventually some cases are cured with surgical treatments.

Shortness of Breath

Shortness of breath, also known as dypnea is a feeling of difficulty in breathing or uncomfortable breathing which results in insufficient airflow for your daily respiration needs. Dypnea is considered as a worrisome symptom of a range of sensitive or continual diseases and disorders.

Severity of this condition depends on the underlying causes including obstruction of the air passages, heart diseases, and emotional distress such as anxiety. Specific causes of shortness of breath include disorders such as lung disease, asthma, coronary heart disease, pneumonia, inhalation of foreign objects, allergies, obesity, compression of the chest wall, panic attacks and gastro esophageal reflux disease (GERD).

COPD

COPD stands for Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, which is a chronic and obstructive disease of the lower respiratory tract in the lungs, making the lungs harder to breath. In Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease the airways that transfer air in and out of your lungs are partly obstructed, resulting in breathing difficulties.

There are two forms of the disease, chronic bronchitis and emphysema. Common symptoms of the disease include shortness of breath, cough and increased mucus. Though the common cause of is smoking, long term inhalation of other irritants into the lungs would also result in COPD. This is identified as the fourth leading cause of death in United States affecting more than a million of population and resulting in 100000 deaths annually.

Lung Disease

Lung disease includes a range of disorder or disease that affects the efficiency of the lungs, causing the organ not to work properly. These disorders can be grouped based on the area it affects as follows:

• Air way diseases (including asthma, chronic bronchitis and emphysema) which affect the airways that carries oxygen and other gases to and from the lungs, causing a narrowing or blockage

• Lung tissue diseases (including sarcoidosis and pulmonary fibrosis) which affects the structure of the lung tissue and makes it unable to expand fully

• Pulmonary circulation diseases which affects the blood vessels in the lungs by clotting or inflammation of the vessels. These diseases will have an impact on the function of heart

Lung Cancer

Being the leading cause of cancer death from cancer in United States, lung cancer is caused by uncontrolled division and growth of abnormal cells lining the airways and other lung regions. Lung is the main organ of the respiratory system that exchanges gases to and from the environment. Generally many other cancers of the body also migrate to the lung, like breast cancer and prostate cancer.

Smoking tobacco is the most important cause for developing lung cancer, which includes both active and passive smoking. Lung cancer is usually found in mature population and rare among small children. Two types of lung cancer are recognized, primary lung cancer which starts in the lungs and the secondary lung cancer which starts somewhere else and spreads to the lungs and infects.

Pleurisy

Pleurisy, also known as pleuritis is an inflammation of the pleural membrane that surrounds and protects the lungs. This condition generally arises from an existing respiratory infection or disease, such as pneumonia or viral infections.

There are two types of Pleurisy, dry pleurisy where the inflamed pleural membranes rub each other and wet pleurisy in which the fluid oozes from the membranes. Wet pleurisy may compress the lungs and result in difficulty in breathing.

Asbestosis

Asbestosis (also known as asbestos exposure) refers to the lung fibrosis that is caused due to the inhalation of asbestos that causes scarring in the lungs and pleural membrane surrounding your lungs. Heavy exposure to asbestos would result in significant asbestosis within the lifespan of an individual.

People with asbestosis are subject to severe breathlessness, chest pains, general weakness and in severe cases have enlarged heart. Lung cancer has also been identified as an outcome of asbestos exposure, even at a lower level.