Is it possible for one of your lungs to stop working?

[JFlynn97]

I'm getting the feeling that one of my lungs isn't working properly. I don't know if its because of the cold I have (my left nostril is more clogged than my right, and its my left lung I'm worried about) or because something is actually wrong. And to make it even better, last night when I was eating dinner I felt like I accidentally inhaled a small piece of the pizza crust I was eating. As soon as that happened I panicked because inhaling foreign objects is obviously bad and I didn't know what was going to happen (or if it even really did happen, and I wasn't just imagining it). Last night I didn't have much to eat for dinner (half of that slice of pizza and a couple bites of dessert because my dad thought it would make me feel better) so this morning I woke up super light headed and kinda dissassociated and I felt like it was hard to breathe. I haven't been able to really stop thinking about it all day and I don't know what to do or how to calm down completely.

If it helps, I have GAD (paired with hypochondria and panic attacks) and dysthymia. I started taking prozac a week ago, only 2.5 mg for the first week and this next week I go up to 5mg. Whenever I take it I imagine myself having some sort of allergic reaction or side effect and it throws me into a panic attack although as I take it more often the panic attacks become less severe. With all this stuff piled on top of each other I just get super worried/anxious/panicky and I just want it to all stop.

Thank you in advance. And I apologize if this is all jumbled or not in the right part of the forums, this is my first post on here.

[Catherine S]

Hi Joel,

I doubt very much your lung is in big trouble, you seem to be too young to suffer with any of the conditions associated with lung disease, even if you happen to be smoking 50 cigarettes a day...it takes many years for that to happen. What I think is happening at the moment is tension. When we are anxious, particularly because of health anxiety, but anxiety in any form means tension in every part of our body. When this was at its worst for me even my eyes ached! This tension affects absolutely every organ and muscle believe me, and we have chest wall muscles which are quite powerful. If anxiety affects these muscles you really know it, because they can make you feel you can't take a deep breath, and that feels really uncomfortable. Trying to relax with anxiety isn't easy, but if you can find a way to breathe more deeply, because anxious people tend to breathe shallow without using full lung capacity, it would certainly help. There are breathing exercises you can do to help expand tense chest wall muscles. Let me know if you feel you need more information. Also, I only know of instances of trauma resulting in a lung being damaged, if you've been in an accident for example. I've personally not heard of a lung collapsing spontaneously.

ISB x