Why is my chest ‘crackling’ when I breathe in and out? Ask the GP DR MARTIN SCURR By Dr Martin Scurr For The Daily Mail Published: 17:01 BST, 26 August 2024 | Updated: 17:05 BST, 26 August 2024 e-mail View comments During a recent health MOT, my GP suggested a chest X-ray after noticing ‘crackles’ when I breathed in and out. I am 62, a non-smoker and very active. What could be the cause? Kay Parton, Oxfordshire.
The term crackles is used to describe abnormal breath sounds heard when a doctor is listening to the chest with a stethoscope. It’s a rattling noise, one of several chest sounds that can indicate a potential problem. Others include ronchi (wheezing); friction rub (an audible ‘rasping’ sound); and stridor (many of us will have heard this when caring for a child suffering from croup).
Crackles (also known as rales) are heard when the lungs are affected by pneumonia (an infection in the air sacs of the lungs, which may then fill with fluid), bronchitis (inflammation of the bronchial tubes) or oedema (fluid in the lung tissue usually caused by heart failure). Why crackles would be heard in someone like you who is active and healthy, with no cough, is hard to explain. Crackles are one of several chest sounds that can indicate a potential problem In your longer letter, you mention you had Covid last summer and queried if that played a part.
But this seems unlikely as you are now feeling well. Your GP has referred you for a chest X-ray. If this shows no abnormality, then I would be reassured, particularly if the crackles have now settled.
However, if they persist, I’d recommend spirometry – a lung function test that measures how much air you can breathe out in one forced breath – as this will help determine if there’s a problem affecting the lungs. If this test is normal then there is another possibility to consider: silent acid reflux, where small quantities of stomach acid leak up into the gullet, but without causing traditional heartburn symptoms. If this happens, especially during the night, it can cause acid to spray into the lungs and cause similar crackling sounds from the chest.
I’d urge you to make sure that you are re-examined. Although it is not a treatment, it might prove helpful to improve the balance of beneficial bacteria in your gut I’ve had chronic diarrhoea since April 2023 following a bout of gastroenteritis. I have been referred to a gastro-enterologist but expect a considerable wait and I am getting desperate.
Name and address supplied. Chronic diarrhoea lasting more than a year demands a diagnosis. You say in your longer letter that your GP has run tests, which will have excluded infective organisms such as E coli, salmonella and campylobacter.
Those tests did reveal that your level of faecal calprotectin, a marker in the blood which indicates there is inflammation in the colon was raised. That could be a result of infection, but also due to prescribed medications, diverticular disease (where bulges form in the intestinal wall), inflammatory bowel disease and, in some albeit rare cases, colorectal cancer. My view is your diarrhoea is suggestive of intestinal hurry.
Food is rushing through your intestine and arriving in the colon only partially digested and liable to undergo fermentation – causing gas and diarrhoea. Read More If I have arthritis, do I have to stop working? Ask the GP DR MARTIN SCURR The question is why? The gastroenterologist will almost certainly recommend a colonoscopy, using a camera to inspect the lining of the colon. In the interim, there is nothing to lose by taking a probiotic such as Symprove or VSL 3, available from chemists, until you are seen by the specialist.
It’s not a treatment but might prove helpful by improving the balance of beneficial bacteria in your gut. Keep a record of your weight, too, as losing weight as well may be significant and you must tell your doctor about it. In my view: Doubts over DNA cancer tests I first heard about the Galleri test - a single blood test which brought the possibility of detecting more than 50 types of cancer - a few years ago, and it seemed to be an advance of staggering proportions.
But the subsequent research has brought questions as well as answers. The aim of the test, a so-called liquid biopsy, is to find fragments of cancer DNA in the blood, which help diagnose 75 per cent of all cancers early – and this brings the best chance of cure. The big, and as yet unanswered, question is how accurate this is at detecting cancer that doesn’t yet cause symptoms? A 2021 study involving 150,000 people, published in the Annals of Oncology, found the test detected only 16 per cent of stage 1 (i.
e. very early) cancers. And the Pathfinder study published last year found 1.
4 per cent of participants had a positive test, which proved to be false positives in 62 per cent of cases. Another question is when a blood test is positive, how is the site of the cancer discovered so that it can be removed? Time and methodical research will reveal if my early excitement was warranted. Share or comment on this article: Why is my chest 'crackling' when I breathe in and out? Ask the GP DR MARTIN SCURR e-mail Add comment.
