A nineteen-year-old girl fought for her life after vaping left her lungs feeling like “broken glass”.
The woman went to the emergency room after experiencing shortness of breath, chills, coughing and a high fever for a week.
Doctors initially diagnosed her with bacterial pneumonia after chest x-rays showed “ground glass opacities” in her lungs.
These are cloudy areas that appear on lung scans, indicating damage from pneumonia or other respiratory illnesses.
The term comes from a glassmaking technique in which the surface of the glass is sandblasted to give the glass a cloudy or frosted appearance.
Typically, the lungs appear black on x-rays and CT scans, but gray, cloudy areas suggest that the air sacs in the lungs may be filled with fluid or other substances.
After a series of antibiotics failed to resolve the woman’s symptoms, doctors were left scratching their heads.
It was only after she shared that she had been using her boyfriend’s vaporizers for the past month that doctors were able to diagnose her with electronic vaping-induced lung injury (EVALI).
EVALI is a term used to describe acute respiratory illnesses caused by the toxic effects of chemicals used in vaping.
According to doctors, the illness induced by electronic cigarettes presents itself as an atypical viral illness, with shortness of breath, cough, chest pain and fever being the most common symptoms.
The woman suffered from symptoms for a week before visiting the emergency room, a Case Challenge report published in Medscape said.
Working as a receptionist at a doctor’s office, she initially assumed she heard something from one of the patients.
The “otherwise healthy” 19-year-old was prescribed five days of antibiotics at a local urgent care, which failed to alleviate her shortness of breath and fever.
Discovering that her shortness of breath was becoming “distressing,” she went to the emergency room for further tests.
Doctors noted that she had a fever of 102.9°F (39°C), as well as low blood oxygen levels, and decided to give her oxygen before performing lung scans and testing her for Covid.
She was initially diagnosed with bacterial pneumonia and given antibiotics, but doctors called a pulmonologist when her “atypical symptoms” didn’t go away after 48 hours.
“When questioned by the pulmonologist about tobacco use, the patient reported vaping e-cigarettes within the last month,” the doctors wrote in the case report.
“Patient reports daily use of electronic cigarettes given to her by her boyfriend.”
Once diagnosed with EVALI, the patient was given steroids – which improved her symptoms – and was advised to give up vaporizers.
“Public health reports show that approximately 2,600 patients were hospitalized due to EVALI in 2020, signaling the beginning of a small epidemic of EVALI cases in the United States,” the report authors said.
“The majority of patients hospitalized with lung injury associated with e-cigarettes or vaping products will require admission to the intensive care unit and will often require mechanical ventilation.
“The prognosis remains good when the disease is properly identified and treated, with a focus on abstaining from e-cigarette use to prevent recurrence.”
Unlike cigarettes, vapes work by heating liquid to form a vapor that is inhaled.
Smoking vs. vaporize
VAPING has been touted as an effective tool for helping people quit smoking.
Although vaping is substantially less harmful than smoking, the habit is not completely harmless and comes with its own set of risks.
The NHS only recommends it for adult smokers to support smoking cessation.
Doctor and author Dr Philippa Kaye explained to The Sun that the differences between vaping and smoking – and whether one is better than the other – are “complicated”.
“In short, vaping is better than smoking, but breathing air is better than vaping.”
Vaping exposes users to far fewer toxins – and at lower levels – than smoking cigarettes.
Switching to vaping significantly reduces exposure to toxins that can cause cancer, lung disease, and heart and circulatory diseases such as heart attack and stroke.
These diseases are not caused by nicotine, which is relatively harmless to health. But research still links vaping to a higher risk of lung failure and disease.
Health risks of cigarettes
- Smokers are more likely than non-smokers to develop heart disease, stroke and lung cancer
- Smokers are at greater risk of diseases that affect the heart and blood vessels
- Smoking can cause lung disease by damaging the airways and small air sacs
- Smoking can cause cancer in almost any part of the body
- It also affects general health such as mouth, eyes, immune system and fertility
Health Risks of Vaping
- They can cause side effects such as throat and mouth irritation, headache, cough and nausea.
- They can lead to tooth decay
- They can harm heart health
- They can cause lung disease
- They could slow brain development
Read more about how vaping can affect your health here.
Sources: NHS, CDC
Vitamin E acetate is a chemical added to some vaping products, which has been linked to EVALI.
A The new England Medicine Magazine suggested that the substance irritates the lungs.
One to study detected vitamin E acetate in the lung fluid of 48 of 51 EVALI patients.
On the other hand, lung fluid samples taken from healthy people did not contain the vitamin.
The use of vaping devices that contain THC has also been linked to the disease.
According to Yale Medicine lung health experts, EVALI may cause the following symptoms:
- Shortness of breathe
- Cough
- Chest pain
- Fever and chills
- Diarrhea, nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain
- Accelerated heartbeat
- Rapid, shallow breathing
While EVALI has been the subject of much research in the US, the CDC launched an investigation into a number of illnesses in 2019.
But studies suggest that it occurs less commonly in the UK.
Vaping – considered less dangerous than smoking – has still been linked to a range of health problems, including lung disease, tooth decay and damage to heart health.
two
This story originally appeared on The-sun.com read the full story
