What is Stridor Breathing?
For those who are not familiar with the term, stridor breathing, it stands for a type of respiratory complication which manifests itself through turbulent breathing. There are many different factors which might cause this breathing problem, and most of them are closely connected with either our lungs or the airways in our body. Stridor breathing refers to, any odd sound produced by complications, like obstacles that interfere with the free flow of air. In order to breathe properly, we need a constant flow of air and the right functioning breathing mechanisms. Thus, if any of these factors lack, we may experience stridor breathing.
What Causes Stridor Breathing?
Quite often, respiratory infections lead to the appearance of stridor breathing. Also, narrowing of the airways can trigger this phenomenon, which usually happens to patients who have been intubated for an excessive amount of time. With children, especially smaller ones and infants, the most common cause of this problem is the fact that they have some food particles in their respiratory pathways, due to improper eating and other, similar factors.
For hospital patients or people visiting their doctor for certain checkups, this phenomenon may strike once being subjected to some methods which require objects being placed in certain parts of the patient's respiratory system. Some of these methods are laryngoscopy or bronchoscopy.
Next, swelling of our adenoids may lead to the onset of this problem and so can edemas found in our facial areas. These are known to restrict the space available for the free passage of air, resulting in the onset of stridor breathing. Edemas of this type may also be caused by allergies or can be classified as side-effects of certain medications.
Different tumors may lead to stridor breathing. Also, Riedel's thyroiditis and some similar autoimmune diseases belong to the list of possible causes too.
There are other conditions, all of which can be the main reason behind this condition. Thus, it should not be neglected but, rather, looked deeper into.
The Treatment
The treatment depends greatly upon the underlying cause of stridor breathing. However, mostly, intubation is a necessity in order to provide the troubled patient free breathing passages. Also, these kinds of patients often need to spend time in areas rich with oxygen, so this should be provided as well. Finally, many other treatments are available, depending on the reason behind this type of breathing and the severity of the problem.
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