At the reception of the therapist after a survey and clinical examination, as a rule, auscultation or listening to the lungs is performed. The result of this study sometimes becomes a record of "hard breathing" in the patient's card. Often, such definitions are frightening, and particularly sensitive people begin to worry about the development of chronic lung and bronchial diseases.
What does the term "hard breathing" mean?
In fact, the phrase under consideration does not carry any semantic load at all.
Normal breathing in a healthy person is called vesicular. It is characterized by a specific noise, which is formed as a result of oscillations of the alveoli (vesicles of the lungs), it is listened to by inhalation and practically absent during exhalation. Vesicular sound is soft and quiet, does not have a clear boundary of the noise termination, as it gradually fades away.
In those cases where the respiratory process is different from that described above, many doctors prefer to write "hard breathing". In fact, this phrase means that the doctor did not find any pathologies, but the noise when listening, according to his subjective perception, differs from the vesicular. Almost in every extract and record in the card one can find a combination of the phrases "hard breathing" and "no wheezing" regardless of the diagnosis.
It is worth noting that auscultation is an extremely unreliable method of research, which is performed more ritually, because everyone is used to the fact that the therapist doctor "will listen". This method requires good, even musical, hearing and rich experience, often gives false results, both positive and negative.
Numerous statements on the Internet that hard breathing is a sign of a respiratory illness, inflammation of the bronchial mucosa, a viral infection, bronchitis, or mucus accumulation are false.
Causes of hard breathing
The correct definition of the condition, when the noise is heard equally when inhaling and exhaling, is bronchial breathing. Sound during auscultation is clearly discernible and very clear, loud.
As a rule, severe bronchial breathing occurs with pneumonia - high fever, coughing and discharge of thick purulent sputum act as confirming the diagnosis of symptoms. Several types of bacteria are considered causative agents of the disease, usually streptococci.
Another cause of bronchial respiration is pulmonary fibrosis . It is a replacement of normal tissue by connective cells. This pathology is typical for people suffering from bronchial asthma and allergic inflammation of the lungs. Also, fibrosis often develops against the background of taking some medications and chemotherapy. Its main symptoms are shortness of breath and dry cough, sometimes with a small amount of sputum, pallor or light blue blueness of the skin.
There are no other factors and diseases contributing to the described state.
Treatment of hard breathing
Given that this diagnosis does not exist at all, no special therapy is also required. In addition, the phenomenon under consideration is only a symptom, and not an independent disease.
If, in the course of the study, bronchial noises were detected on inhalation and exhalation, and concomitant signs indicate the development of pneumonia, antimicrobial treatment would be required.
To prescribe antibiotics for severe bronchial breathing, a preliminary examination of sputum is necessary. The analysis allows to identify the pathogen and conduct tests for its sensitivity to various drugs. With mixed bacterial infection or an indeterminate type of microbes, antibiotics with a wide spectrum of action from the group of cephalosporins, penicillins and macrolides are recommended.
The treatment of fibrosis consists of the use of glucocorticosteroids, cytostatics and antifibrotic medicines, as well as oxygen therapy.