PE is a blood clot in the lungs. It goes undiagnosed all too often in the clinical setting due to its nonspecific symptoms. So how do you get a blood clot in the lungs?

Most commonly what happens is the deep legs of the vein or calf veins are very susceptible to forming blood clots but the clot can form anywhere in the body. A clot in the leg veins also known as DVT (Deep Vein Thrombosis) needs to be treated early. Thrombosis is just jargon for blood clot. Once the clot breaks loose and travels in the body and occludes a blood vessel, it is called an embolism. So, how does it get from the legs to your lungs?

Here is an excellent video on the formation of a clot and how it gets to your lungs:

So how does the clot form? The answer lies in something called Virchow’s Triad. First, some people have a genetic tendency to form clots also known as hypercoagulablity. Hypercoagulability is either inherited or acquired. Examples of acquired hypercoagulability are pregnancy, diabetes, old age, immobility, inflammation, cancer, obesity, hormonal replacement therapy, and oral contraception use. If you fall in any of these categories, you should be more aware of this condition. The next risk factor is venous stasis, which means slowing or stoppage of blood flow in the veins. This can be caused by immobilization, obesity, and advanced age which is associated with a decrease in physical activity. Thirdly, vascular damage which can be seen in injury or surgery. Surgery or trauma patients need to be protected against pulmonary embolism as they have both vascular damage and venous stasis from the decreased physical activity.

Although some may be asymptomatic, some common signs and symptoms of a PE: chest pain, shortness of breath, rapid respiration, fever, cough, coughing up blood, low blood pressure, racing heart beat, or feeling faint. If you are having pain and discomfort in the leg, it is advisable to see a physician as this may be DVT which can become PE.

How to prevent Pulmonary Embolism?

• By preventing the cause of a PE, a DVT.
• See your doctor regularly and take the medications prescribed.
• Lose weight and exercise.
• After surgery or an illness, get out of bed and move around.
• During long trips, exercise your legs.

Travel Tips for Deep Vein Thrombosis and Pulmonary Embolism Prevention

• In a car trip, stop about every hour to walk around and stretch.
• In an airplane or train, stretch and walk up and down the aisles. In order to prevent Economy Class Syndrome, walk around the plane when it is safe to do so even if it annoys the people around you when your sitting near the window.
• Move and stretch your legs and feet to promote blood flow.
• Hydrate yourself and avoid alcohol.
• Wear comfortable clothing

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As we know Bernie Mac died on August 9, 2008 from complications of pneumonia. Many people have been reading that he was diagnosed with a condition call sarcoidosis. I have been asked by many people being in the medical profession what is sarcoidosis?

Sarcoidosis is an autoimmune disease (body is attacking itself) where inflammatory nodules caused by a cluster of cells called granulomas which can be seen throughout the body but most of the time in lungs. It is classically seen in people of African descent. Patients with sarcoidosis will complain of fever, night sweats, weight loss, dry cough or breathing problems but the list is much longer since sarcoidosis is a systemic disease.

The treatment of sarcoidosis is primarily steroids which reduce the inflammation. However, the draw backs of treating with steroids is that your immune system is weakened. So in Bernie Mac’s case, he did not die from the sarcoidosis but most likely what happened is he was on a treatment of steroids which weakened his immune system from fighting off the organism that caused he pneumonia. Most healthy people would have been able to fight it off but in Bernie’s case his immune system was not up to par and his body was overwhelmed from the organism. Our prayers go out to Bernie Mac’s family in this difficult time.

Here is a video of Bernie in one of his famous skits entitled “My Sisters Kids” :

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According to the Mayo Clinic pulmonologist, Dr. Edward Rosenow the answer is NO!

It’s a myth that hookah smoking is safer than smoking cigarettes. The tobacco is no less toxic. Hookah smokers actually inhale more tobacco smoke than do cigarette smokers because of the massive volume of smoke they inhale.

Hookah — also called narghile, shisha and goza — is a water pipe. The device has been used for centuries in the Middle East and Asia to smoke tobacco. Now, hookah bars and cafes are popping up across the United States — fueled by the growing popularity of hookah smoking among teens and young adults.

The hookah device consists of four parts:

• A base, or smoke chamber, which is partially filled with water
• A bowl, which contains tobacco and the heating source
• A pipe that connects the bowl to the base and dips into the water in the base
• A hose, a second tube in the pipe that does not dip into the water but opens into air in the base and allows users to inhale the hookah smoke

When a smoker inhales through the tube, a pressure difference forces air past the heating source and heats the tobacco, which gives off smoke. The smoke is pulled away from the tobacco and passes through the water and into the smoke chamber — from which it is inhaled by the smoker.

Although many believe that the water in the hookah filters out all the “bad stuff” in the tobacco smoke, this isn’t true. According to a World Health Organization advisory, a typical one-hour session of hookah smoking exposes the user to 100 to 200 times the volume of smoke inhaled from a single cigarette. Even after passing through water, tobacco smoke still contains high levels of toxic compounds, including carbon monoxide, heavy metals and cancer-causing chemicals (carcinogens). Hookah smoking also delivers significant levels of nicotine — the addictive substance in tobacco.

The trend of hookah smoking has doctors and public health experts concerned because — despite claims to the contrary by many users — smoking from a hookah is just as dangerous as smoking cigarettes.

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