Pneumoconiosis - Causes and Symptoms of Disease
11 July 2007Pneumoconiosis means dust in the lungs. The term refers to a number of occupational diseases that are caused by inhaling various kinds of dust particles. If you have been inhaling such particles continuously for many years, little patches of irritation may have formed in one or both of your lungs. If the scar tissue caused by the irritation has made your lungs less flexible and porous, you are suffering from some type of pneumoconiosis. A common form of the disorder in this country is appropriately named coal-miner’s pneumoconiosis, or black lung disease. Silicosis is another form of pneumoconiosis. It affects workers in quarries, stone masons, metal grinders, and miners who drill rock. Others who may also be susceptible to pneumoconiosis are those who work with aluminum, asbestos, beryllium, iron, talc, cotton, sugar cane, and any of a number of synthetic fibers.It usually takes at least ten years of continual daily exposure to contract a dust disease. However, some people who work with asbestos under poor conditions may succumb to asbestosis, a form of pneumoconiosis that is caused by asbestos dust, in much less time. Coal-miner’s pneumoconiosis sometimes takes 25 years to develop.
What are the symptoms?
Breathlessness from exertion is the dominant symptom of pneumoconiosis. In silicosis the symptoms usually become progressively worse, and there may be other symptoms associated with tuberculosis of the lungs . In all types of dust disease there is usually a cough with phlegm, or sputum, similar to the cough in chronic bronchitis . The phlegm of coal-miners with pneumoconiosis is often black .
What should be done?
If you work where you are exposed to dust, find out what the dust is and if it carries some risk of pneumoconiosis. Check with your employee safety representative, management or your union. If the dust does cause lung damage, make sure you have a chest X-ray once a year, and consult your physician if you notice that you are increasingly short of breath. The physician will probably want to see a chest X-ray and results from pulmonary function tests to find out if you are severely affected. If you are, it may be advisable to change jobs, if possible. Even in a different job, you should continue to have periodic chest X-rays for the rest of your life, so that if you have later complications of your dust disease, you can discover them early.
If you smoke, give it up. There is a particularly good reason for not smoking if you have a potentially serious case of pneumoconiosis. Since only a small proportion of workers exposed to the dusts that cause the disorder actually become ill, we can assume that if you do, you are probably prone to lung diseases. Therefore, you may also be susceptible to other disorders that are caused by or intensified by tobacco smoke, including lung cancer .
What is the treatment?
Only a few of the pneumoconioses can be treated. Steroid drugs are usually used in these cases.
Tagged under:asbestosis, black lung disease, chronic bronchitis, dominant symptom, lung damage, lungs, Lungs and Chest, pneumoconiosis tuberculosis
