I know that our lungs try to couch out everything they can, but what happens if something we breathe in gets stuck in our lungs somehow? is that possible, and if so, how do we go about getting it out?
(For the record, I’m imagining something small like dirt/dust getting stuck in there)
In: Biology
you would get aspiration pneumonia. You can also get a bronchoscopy where they stick a scope down your lungs to check it out and wash away/suck up all the crap that’s in there
It depends on the size of the object and what it’s made of. Larger objects will get caught in the trachea, the tube leading to the lungs and could cause choking or suffocation if not removed. Smaller objects can make their way down in to the lungs and cause irritation, physical damage or infection.
Coughing is the bodies natural response to try and remove objects from the lungs so that’s the first response. There can be an immune response as well, which can cause fever among other things. If the object carrier germs with it it can lead to infection and pneumonia. Some biological objects will eventually be broken down but you shouldn’t depend on that if you experience dangerous symptoms or swallow non-organic objects or large objects. These can be removed either through use of special tools that can go down the esophagus or if necessary surgically.
Finally for especially small substances such as dust the body has natural defenses, such as nasal hairs and white blood cells to handle small and/or limited amounts but regular exposure to large amounts or to the wrong types can overwhelm these defenses and the particles can permanently damage the lungs. Especially dangerous substances like asbestos or metallic dust can induce significant scarring and result in lung disease or lung cancer.
There are tiny hairs in the lungs which can operate together to lift tiny particles out of the lungs, these are later swallowed or coughed up.
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