2 upvotes, 1 direct replies (showing 1)
View submission: Do we have old air in our lungs if we don't take deep breaths to clear them out?
Like the other commentator said, that is a different type of collapsed lung. Colloquially a collapsed lung is refers to a pneumothorax, where air collects outside of the lung itself, most commonly due to injury to the lung or chest wall. This air will keep accumulating outside of the lung, and due to excess pressure in that space, it will force the air out of the inside of the lung. This can be life threatening depending on the mechanisms involved.
What most people are referring to in this thread is a different process called “atelectasis”. This is more like a shrinking or deflating of the lung itself. Coughing will not cause this, it’s actually will help with this due to the transient increase in intrapulmonary pressure due to the forced expiration against a closed glottis.
Trace atelectasis happens naturally all the time. Some lung units will shrink: if you sleep on your back, the lung units in the very back of the lung will deflate a little due to the extra pressure. Once you’re up and moving again, they’ll reinflate. Happens all the time in hospitalized patients. A healthy person *cannot* develop significant amounts of atelectasis because of the chest wall recoil, the chest wall acfually forces your lungs to stay open. No matter how hard you try, there will *always* be some air left in your lungs.
Comment by PHealthy at 12/11/2024 at 15:18 UTC
-1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
You must have missed my top comment.