So when they stick the tube in your neck because you are choking im unsure in the process to breathe. Is it conscious or what? I’d assume most people don’t know how to breathe from the neck
In: Biology
Strictly talking about breathing, the main purpose of your trachea is just being a tube to allow air into your lungs. The only thing creating a hole between your trachea and the air will change is that air will now skip everything above the trachea (e.g. mouth/nose filtering and conditioning, but also whatever blockages made the surgery important).
The only part of your body that is active when you breathe is your diaphragm, a muscle that is just above your stomach. You automatically move it when you breath in or out, and as long as most of your body is airtight that’s all that needs to happen.
your lungs do the breathing automatically, not your neck or mouth. so it’s just business as usual. I suppose it’s probably weird at first not feeling breath on your lips.
Respiratory therapist here…your body will continue to breathe as normal and you don’t have to consciously worry about breathing through an opening in your neck. A tracheostomy is placed in order to protect a patient’s airway due to facial/neck trauma, chronic and terminal diseases, or TBI. The most common reason we put in a trach is if the patient requires long term support from the ventilator to breathe. Think of things like ALS, paralysis, certain cancers, etc.
The trach allows us to maintain the airway by suctioning and keeping the airway clear/patent. It sounds a lot scarier than it is. I often explain to patients and families how you can eat and speak with a trach and in many cases we are able to remove the trach all together when/if the patient reaches that point. It just all depends on the case.
Hope this helps!
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