Most people do not know what that is. This author is more familiar with this respiratory disorder than the average medical professional. The purpose of this paper is to identify and describe the rare respiratory disease that took the life of a twenty seven year old mother, my mother. Bronchiectasis is an abnormal destruction and dilation of the large airway. A person may be born with it, or may acquire it later in life as a result of another disease.
The signs and symptoms of bronchiectasis can include chronic cough with large amounts of foul smelling sputum production, some coughing up blood and cough worsened by lying on your side. Some other symptoms are shortness of breath, fatique and wheezing, some skin discoloration a bluish color and paleness. I vaguely remember episodes of my mother having some of these symptoms. My mother was very sick with this disease for ten years before she passed away. She had major shotness of breath and it gradually worsened, along with the chronic cough with large amounts of foul smelling sputum production.
Some of the causes and risk factors for bronchiectasis areoften caused by recurrent inflammation or infection of the airways. It maybe present at birth, but most often it begins in childhood as a complication from infection or inhaling a foreign object. Cystic fibrosis causes about fifty percent of all bronchiectasis today. Recurrent, severe lung infections such as pneumonia, tuberculosis and fungal infections are some of the predisposing factors. My mother became very sick after the birth of the author, and never recovered.
There is diagnostic test for bronchiectasis which can include a chest x-ray which will x-ray the lungs, chest ct also x-rays the lungs but is more in depth than just a regular chest x-ray. You can also do a sputum culture which you can collect and send to the laboratory for them to run all sorts of tests on.