Crack lung is a pulmonary condition that can occur in those who use large amounts of the narcotic crack cocaine. The illness typically causes fever, coughing, phlegm, intense pain, and bleeding from the lungs. Crack lung sometimes shows up as lung abnormalities on X-rays, though this is not always the case. It can cause severe inflammation and scarring of the lung tissue. The condition can lead to chronic lung damage and death.
The symptoms of crack lung are often likened to those of pneumonia or emphysema. They generally appear only after heavy use of crack cocaine. Symptoms will usually begin within two days of crack cocaine abuse. While its symptoms are similar to emphysema, crack lung is typically considered a more acute illness. While emphysema typically develops over years of smoking cigarettes or exposure to other airborne toxins, crack lung usually occurs quite soon after large amounts of crack cocaine are smoked.
Experts believe that the lung damage caused by smoking crack cocaine occurs because cocaine typically causes the narrowing of blood vessels. This narrowing can lead to sharp increases in blood pressure in the lungs. When large amounts of crack cocaine are smoked continuously over a prolonged period of several hours or more, the tissues of the lungs can begin to suffer from restricted blood flow. As a result, lung tissues may not receive the oxygen they need to function properly. Inflammation and, eventually, scarring can occur as a result of crack lung.
Toxins make the tiny airways in your lungs swell. This can make your chest feel tight and can cause wheezing and shortness of breath. If you continue smoking, the inflammation can build into scar. No doubt that smoking crack can damage the brain, but it also can cause 'acute crack lung'. The inhaled smoke from crack inflames lung tissue and can cause swelling and bleeding of the lung itself. Inflammation always has the same response in the body. Get a skin scrape, and soon redness, swelling, warmth, and pain occur at the site of injury.
While lung tissue is generally considered difficult to damage irreparably, doctors usually stress that the tissue cannot recover once it is damaged. It may take some time for crack lung to lead to significant long-term lung symptoms, such as shortness of breath, wheezing, and reduced ability to exercise. Most medical experts agree that this window of time is much shorter than it is for emphysema, a condition in which the lungs are usually damaged by long-term tobacco smoking. Acute episodes may lead to death if not treated quickly.
When inflammation or scarring of the lung tissues occurs, crack lung may be suspected if the person is younger than about 50 years of age. That's because emphysema doesn't normally appear in people younger than 50, unless they possess a rare genetic anomaly. A history of crack cocaine use is usually considered an indicator of the condition. Lung function tests, MRIs, and X-rays are usually used to diagnose lung damage due to crack cocaine use.
Most people understand that smoking affects the lungs along with practically every other organ in the human body and increases the risk of developing many various diseases.
How Smoking Affects The Lungs
But certainly the one part of your body that is arguably the most affected by smoking is your lungs.
Let's take a closer look at what exactly a smoking habit does to your lungs. How smoking affects the lungs.
Changes in Appearance
Because they're continually pumped up with oxygen, normal and healthy lungs are plump and pink.
They may not be pretty to look at, but they're clean and pure.
However, you can instantly recognize a smoker's lungs on sight.
Smokers' lungs are black.
The black color is because every time you inhale a cigarette, it deposits tar in your lungs.
Over time and after smoking lots of cigarettes every day, enough tar deposits build up inside the bronchioles until it is distributed throughout the entire lungs. On top of that, you may have separate dark spots from smoking related pollution, too.
Although it's not as visible to the naked eye, there are a lot of tiny changes inside your lungs, too.
Your lungs have little hair-like structures called cilia, which act like gentle brushes to move particles through your lungs and help you to breathe better.
But smoking ultimately damages off those cilia, so you don't get the same benefits they offered.
The cilia rest overnight when you don't smoke, but eventually that damage can become permanent.
The Dreaded 'Smoker's Cough'
You're probably familiar with the sound of an older person who has smoked for many years because they have a distinctive hacking cough, often called the 'smoker's cough.'
Ablebits activation key. The smoker's cough doesn't just sound unpleasant – it's also very uncomfortable for the one doing the coughing.
The chemicals in smoke, like hydrogen cyanide, irritate the lining of your bronchial passages and cause inflammation that leads to coughing.
Your lungs do work to try to remove the tar you inhale by smoking, by moving it out of the lungs through the bronchiole tubes and up into the trachea.
But nicotine paralyzes the cilia, so that causes the coughing because your lungs have to work that much harder.
Whatever irritants you can cough up comes out in the form of phlegm.
Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease
Imagine never feeling like you can get enough air into your lungs, and how hard that would make it for you to breathe.
That's exactly what happens if you have chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD, which is a serious illness that's believed to be caused by cigarette smoking.
Other conditions, particularly certain jobs like coal mining or working in an environment with very bad air quality, can also lead to COPD.
Emphysema is sometimes referred to as a separate illness from COPD, but emphysema is actually an early stage of the other disease and refers to changes that are occurring within the lungs.
Emphysema and chronic bronchitis are both associated with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and symptoms feel like extreme shortness of breath, wheezing, being unable to catch your breath and intense coughing.
Ultimately, COPD is really bad news, because it almost always gets gradually worse and results in death.
Lung Cancer
Lung cancer is the biggest bad news you can get when you're a smoker.
Although some cases of lung cancer can be caused by other factors, like exposure to radon, asbestos and radiation, the vast majority of cases of lung cancer happen to smokers or people who live with smokers.
How Bad Is Smoking Crack For Your Lungs Naturally
About 85 to 90 percent of people with lung cancer are current or former smokers.
Although lung cancer can be somewhat treatable when caught in the early stages, it's often undiscovered until it's too late because the symptoms are mistaken for allergies or other chronic respiratory symptoms associated with smoking.
Recovering Your Breath
While lung tissue is generally considered difficult to damage irreparably, doctors usually stress that the tissue cannot recover once it is damaged. It may take some time for crack lung to lead to significant long-term lung symptoms, such as shortness of breath, wheezing, and reduced ability to exercise. Most medical experts agree that this window of time is much shorter than it is for emphysema, a condition in which the lungs are usually damaged by long-term tobacco smoking. Acute episodes may lead to death if not treated quickly.
When inflammation or scarring of the lung tissues occurs, crack lung may be suspected if the person is younger than about 50 years of age. That's because emphysema doesn't normally appear in people younger than 50, unless they possess a rare genetic anomaly. A history of crack cocaine use is usually considered an indicator of the condition. Lung function tests, MRIs, and X-rays are usually used to diagnose lung damage due to crack cocaine use.
Most people understand that smoking affects the lungs along with practically every other organ in the human body and increases the risk of developing many various diseases.
How Smoking Affects The Lungs
But certainly the one part of your body that is arguably the most affected by smoking is your lungs.
Let's take a closer look at what exactly a smoking habit does to your lungs. How smoking affects the lungs.
Changes in Appearance
Because they're continually pumped up with oxygen, normal and healthy lungs are plump and pink.
They may not be pretty to look at, but they're clean and pure.
However, you can instantly recognize a smoker's lungs on sight.
Smokers' lungs are black.
The black color is because every time you inhale a cigarette, it deposits tar in your lungs.
Over time and after smoking lots of cigarettes every day, enough tar deposits build up inside the bronchioles until it is distributed throughout the entire lungs. On top of that, you may have separate dark spots from smoking related pollution, too.
Although it's not as visible to the naked eye, there are a lot of tiny changes inside your lungs, too.
Your lungs have little hair-like structures called cilia, which act like gentle brushes to move particles through your lungs and help you to breathe better.
But smoking ultimately damages off those cilia, so you don't get the same benefits they offered.
The cilia rest overnight when you don't smoke, but eventually that damage can become permanent.
The Dreaded 'Smoker's Cough'
You're probably familiar with the sound of an older person who has smoked for many years because they have a distinctive hacking cough, often called the 'smoker's cough.'
Ablebits activation key. The smoker's cough doesn't just sound unpleasant – it's also very uncomfortable for the one doing the coughing.
The chemicals in smoke, like hydrogen cyanide, irritate the lining of your bronchial passages and cause inflammation that leads to coughing.
Your lungs do work to try to remove the tar you inhale by smoking, by moving it out of the lungs through the bronchiole tubes and up into the trachea.
But nicotine paralyzes the cilia, so that causes the coughing because your lungs have to work that much harder.
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Whatever irritants you can cough up comes out in the form of phlegm.
Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease
Imagine never feeling like you can get enough air into your lungs, and how hard that would make it for you to breathe.
That's exactly what happens if you have chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, or COPD, which is a serious illness that's believed to be caused by cigarette smoking.
Other conditions, particularly certain jobs like coal mining or working in an environment with very bad air quality, can also lead to COPD.
Emphysema is sometimes referred to as a separate illness from COPD, but emphysema is actually an early stage of the other disease and refers to changes that are occurring within the lungs.
Emphysema and chronic bronchitis are both associated with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and symptoms feel like extreme shortness of breath, wheezing, being unable to catch your breath and intense coughing.
Ultimately, COPD is really bad news, because it almost always gets gradually worse and results in death.
Lung Cancer
Lung cancer is the biggest bad news you can get when you're a smoker.
Although some cases of lung cancer can be caused by other factors, like exposure to radon, asbestos and radiation, the vast majority of cases of lung cancer happen to smokers or people who live with smokers.
How Bad Is Smoking Crack For Your Lungs Naturally
About 85 to 90 percent of people with lung cancer are current or former smokers.
Although lung cancer can be somewhat treatable when caught in the early stages, it's often undiscovered until it's too late because the symptoms are mistaken for allergies or other chronic respiratory symptoms associated with smoking.
Recovering Your Breath
Your lungs provide the literal breath of life, and they can do a lot to regenerate themselves when they're exposed to damage.
But a regular smoking habit really takes a major toll on your lungs, and in many cases your lungs just can't overcome the amount of damage.
Even though smoking affects the lungs, the good news is that your body has a big capacity to heal, and the sooner you quit smoking, the sooner you reduce the risk of damage to your lungs.
How Bad Is Smoking Crack For Your Lungs Infection
For further help, check out – How to Detox After Quitting Smoking – 9 Simple Tips.
