“Not all that wheezes is asthma,” I’ve heard.
True, true.
Must have been a pediatrician who popularized that saying… or maybe it was before cigarettes were a thing.
Because maybe 10% of wheezes I hear in the hospital are in patients with asthma.
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One of the places I work is a county/safety net hospital. Relatively younger folks, few of them have smoked.
But plenty have heart, kidney, and liver disease.
By far the most common cause of wheeze here is airways edema from volume overload states.
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I also work at the veteran’s hospital. Much older population. Most have smoked. Many were given a pack of cigarettes when they enlisted - whether they asked for it or not.
There, I’d say the #1 cause of wheeze is a tie between COPD and heart failure.
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So…
When you hear wheezing, don’t forget about asthma.
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