Pulmonary Edema Health Video

Pulmonary edema refers to a swelling of the lungs and/or the accumulation of fluid in the lungs, which occurs from a weakness of the heart or direct injury. Learn more about pulmonary edema in this video.

Take Action

Avoid salt & salty foods
Treat the symptoms early
Visit your cardiologist regularly

About this Author

Dr. Dave Weiland has been practicing cardiology in the Bay Area for 21 years. On top of operating a practive in San Pablo, CA for the past 15 years, Dr. Weiland works with eight other doctors in traveling all around the Bay Area to treat patients everywhere. Dr. Weiland graduated from the Ohio State Medical School in 1981; following that with an additional six years of study at Tufts University. Dr. Weiland received his training in cardiology at the New England Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts, and now teaches medical students about cardiology.

DAVE WEILAND: Hi. I'm Dr. David Weiland. Today we're going to talk about pulmonary edema. Pulmonary edema is a disease with the lungs filled up with fluid. We have a patient in the hospital right now with pulmonary edema. The nurse described it as a sponge. If your lungs are a sponge, normally the sponge is dry; however, if that sponge is totally saturated with water, that's what the lungs are like with pulmonary edema. The symptoms of pulmonary edema would include extreme shortness of breath, often a cough with clear sputum, and when the physician examines the patient, they would here lots of crackling in the lungs. Sometimes the patient is aware of that crackling is a part of their symptoms. Treatment of pulmonary edema involves 1.) figuring out what the underlying cause is, oftentimes a heart attack or a weakened heart, 2) would be the administration of a drug like furosemide or Lasix, which will cause the patient to urinate out large amounts of fluid, which will clear the lungs of the fluid condition. If there is a heart attack again, treating the underlying disease would be very beneficial in the treatment of pulmonary edema. Prevention of pulmonary edema for patients with heart disease, with heart failure is to avoid things that make that worse; in the case of heart failure, avoiding salt, salty foods is very important, not adding salt to food. In the case of patients with coronary artery disease, to treat symptoms of coronary artery disease and angina pectoris early, taking nitroglycerine at the time for an episode of angina before the lungs would have a chance to fill up the fluid. How to take action: If you have pulmonary edema and you've had it before you would know the symptoms, oftentimes it requires treatment in the emergency room.