Mayo Clinic Minute: Hypersensitivity pneumonitis – is your feather bedding making you sick?
If you have feather bedding or clothes and have some respiration issues, you ought to find out about feather quilt lung.
Feather quilt lung or hypersensitivity pneumonitis, is a lung downside brought on by sensitivity to antigen from feathers in duvets and pillows stuffed with duck or goose feathers. Breathing on this mud triggers a response within the body, inflicting lung irritation and problem respiration.
Dr. Ana Zamora-Martinez, a Mayo Clinic pulmonologist, says repeated publicity can result in irreversible pulmonary (lung) fibrosis, the place the lungs turn into completely scarred and broken.
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Down-filled comforters, pillows and jackets could really feel luxurious, however inhaling mud from these feathers may cause lung irritation in some individuals.
“A sensitivity in the lungs. That is an inflammation that if not treated on time can progress to fibrosis, which is scarring in the lungs,” says Dr. Zamora-Martinez.
It can take days or months of publicity earlier than a person has signs.
“The symptoms are shortness of breath, cough. You can have a fever, or low-grade fever, not high grades —just feeling unwell, malaise,” she says.
Pulmonary fibrosis is irreversible, however there are therapies to halt its development.
“We can prevent that inflammation that is still there, give it a steroid and melt the inflammation. Give it immunosuppression, and melt inflammation, and then it heals normally and does not progress to scarring or fibrosis,” Dr. Zamora-Martinez says.
And what about all that down?
“The most necessary factor is to do away with the antigen.”
Dr. Zamora-Martinez says if you like the texture of down however are involved, there are down options to feather bedding to contemplate.
And she says it is necessary to pay attention to your respiration. If you have problem respiration and getting air into your lungs, search medical attention.
More about pulmonary fibrosis
There are many varieties of pulmonary fibrosis. The most typical sort is idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF), which has no identified trigger. Other types of pulmonary fibrosis might be triggered by autoimmune illnesses, viral infections, gastroesophageal reflux illness (GERD) and environmental exposures.
Diagnosis could embrace lung operate checks, imaging checks corresponding to chest x-ray or computerized tomography (CT) scan, biopsy and blood checks
Learn about pulmonary fibrosis care at Mayo Clinic.
