In Scotland, a 43-year-old man developed a lung infection after buying feather bedding. If he had not been treated in time, he could have contracted irreversible pulmonary fibrosis.
If your first instinct in this cold period is to take refuge under a big fluffy duvet, beware of feather bedding. In an article published in the British Medical JournalScottish doctors relate the case of a man in his forties suffering from interstitial pneumopathy (lung infection) caused by inhaling organic dust from the feathers of his duvet and pillow.
In November 2016, a 43-year-old non-smoker went to his general practitioner saying he had been feeling unwell, tired and short of breath for some time. A few weeks later, the evil worsens, to the point that the man stops working for fourteen days.
If blood tests show nothing abnormal, the shortness of breath keeps getting worse. “Two months after the onset of symptoms, I was unable to stand or walk for more than a few minutes at a time without feeling like I was going to pass out. Going up to bed was a 30 minute activity as I could only climb two stairs at a time and then had to sit down and rest. I was allowed to leave my job and I spent most of the time asleep (day and night)”, testifies the patient in the article, now recovered.
Acute lung infection
He is then prescribed an X-ray and specialists question the patient about his lifestyle. Among multiple information about his daily life, the man reveals that he recently bought a duvet and a feather pillow when he had synthetic bedding before.
After analyzing the results and the interrogation, the doctors then diagnosed him with a interstitial lung disease, an acute lung infection that can progress to more serious lung disease. Suspicious, they recommend that he part with his new bedding, no doubt the cause of his illness.
The patient complied and his symptoms and lung capacity improved even before he started the oral corticosteroid treatment he had been prescribed. “Steroids prescribed after diagnosis had a transformative effect in 2 days. At the same time, having assumed that a possible cause of the allergy was feather bedding, I replaced them with hypoallergenic bedding. Steroid administration continued for 12 months, with a gradual reduction in dose over time. Fortunately, I managed to stop them completely. These days my oxygen saturation is regularly 97-98%, which is normal for someone my age, and I haven’t had any dizziness since my recovery. It doesn’t affect me at all now and my life is pretty much the same as before,” the patient explains.
Risk of irreversible pulmonary fibrosis
“This case reinforces the importance of taking a meticulous exposure history and asking about household bedding in patients with unexplained shortness of breath. Early recognition and cessation of antigen exposure can prevent the development of a irreversible pulmonary fibrosis”conclude the specialists.
Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is a rare pathology that nevertheless affects more than 4,000 people every year in France. The main symptoms, persistent cough and shortness of breath, are misleading since they correspond to many other pathologies. Nevertheless, other signs can alert. Indeed, patients with IPF suffer from deformed fingers and the lack of oxygen to their body gives their lips a bluish tint. As for the sound of the cough, it resembles that of a Velcro tape being torn off.
It is essential to be attentive to these symptoms for an early diagnosis, because long-term drugs exist to slow down the evolution of the disease towards respiratory failure (potentially fatal). For already badly affected lungs, doctors recommend respiratory rehabilitation or oxygen therapy.
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