Re: Should I be concerned?
Posted: Thu Apr 16, 2015 6:38 pm
Dear Elaine
Firstly well done for your own understanding and detective work. The whole area of interstitial lung disease is complex. Almost any insult (inhaled such as dust or bird feathers) or circulating (medication or certain autoantibodies) can cause lung damage in an individual. The lung either becomes inflamed or fibrosed or a mixture of both. If no cause is found, it is called idiopathic, if it is the most severe form of fibrosis and idiopathic, it is called IPF. I hope that that makes sense? It is sometimes very very hard to distinguish the severe fibrosis seen with hypersensitivity to bird feathers from IPF even with a lung biopsy, especially if performed late in the disease process or at post mortem. Your brother had reasons to develop pulmonary fibrosis (birds, hiatus hernia, male) and you many never know which specific cause or form he had.
Either way- whether this was IPF or fibrosis due to birds or a mixture in your family, it does suggest that your family is susceptible to a fibrotic response to lung damage and I would suggest the same checks.
Best wishes, Dr Jo Porter
PS: You tend not to see an allergic reaction to the budgies just a gradual onset of shortness of breath over some time in some people; others may have a more acute response, but these tend to be the patients that stop keeping budgies and so never develop the full blown chronic fibrotic response over time.
Firstly well done for your own understanding and detective work. The whole area of interstitial lung disease is complex. Almost any insult (inhaled such as dust or bird feathers) or circulating (medication or certain autoantibodies) can cause lung damage in an individual. The lung either becomes inflamed or fibrosed or a mixture of both. If no cause is found, it is called idiopathic, if it is the most severe form of fibrosis and idiopathic, it is called IPF. I hope that that makes sense? It is sometimes very very hard to distinguish the severe fibrosis seen with hypersensitivity to bird feathers from IPF even with a lung biopsy, especially if performed late in the disease process or at post mortem. Your brother had reasons to develop pulmonary fibrosis (birds, hiatus hernia, male) and you many never know which specific cause or form he had.
Either way- whether this was IPF or fibrosis due to birds or a mixture in your family, it does suggest that your family is susceptible to a fibrotic response to lung damage and I would suggest the same checks.
Best wishes, Dr Jo Porter
PS: You tend not to see an allergic reaction to the budgies just a gradual onset of shortness of breath over some time in some people; others may have a more acute response, but these tend to be the patients that stop keeping budgies and so never develop the full blown chronic fibrotic response over time.