PFT Drop Question

[Justinsmama]

Hi,

I had Justin at the ped's yesterday. He has recently had an increase in non-productive cough and pain in his left lower abdomen (where he has had his pneumonia's in the past). He has had the pain since Friday (Sunday really bad) but seemed much better yesterday after school. I almost cancelled. The doctor ran PFT's. We have had them done for years there and they are always similar to Clinic. His PFT's went from the best FVC and FEV1 (100%) and 25/75 (85%) to FVC and FEV1 (32%) and 25/75 (29%). His FEV1/FVC us 103%. Does this seem valid? Would he be having much more of a difficult time? He did have an increase cough (nonproductive - almost broncho spasms) for weeks and needed his inhaler more often and had the pain but nothing else. He had a history of the past year of ups and downs on his 25/75 (down to 59%) and has been on several courses of antibiotics and oral steroids. Does this sound like pseudomonas? CF doctor thought he might have had this but just didn't show in culture (too low and he does not bring up sputum). Wouldn't there be more signs? Waiting for ped to talk to clinic this morning. Hoping the PFT's were a fluke.

 

[Printer]

I would bring him to the ER at the Clinic/Hospital ASAP!!!

Bill

 

[Melissa75]

When I have pain from pneumonia, my ability to inhale fully and exhale forcefully is pretty compromised. How bad is his pain?

Also, PFTs are supposed to be repeated three times "reproducibility" so that the doctor can be more sure the readings weren't a fluke (hiccup, cough, confusion whatever). You keep doing the readings until you get three that are inside a certain margin of difference.

I hope you get some answers today. This sounds scary, but I agree that with such a drop (68%!), he'd likely be more obviously compromised. When I cultured pseudomonas instead of my strep, my drop was 6-9%. But I've also never had PFTs when I have pneumonia, but I know based on how shallow and rapidly I breathe and how I am SOB walking across the room, that they're probably a lot lower.