I'm a 22m, and about 3 years ago (my first semester at college) I spent about 3 weeks in the hospital with this. I was admitted for pneumonia (sp?) that got to the point they had to give me a breathing tube. The breathing tube installation caused seizures (which is almost nil for my family history) and I basically only remember my first few days in the hospital and my last couple days before I left. The dr told me I had ARDS, but I couldn't really understand what he was telling me (medical jargon) so I was wondering if someone can explain it to me? is it just like an advanced form of pneumonia? Also, Is it common for the gag reflexes to cause a seizure from breathing tubes? Thanks

ARDS is not age specific ... so the nurses should have not been suprised ...



This is a very complex disease (Adult Respiratory Distress Syndrome) ... so I am going to give you a link to go to that breaks it down for the lay person ....



I would suspect that you needing a breathing tube ... that oxygenation was dangerously low ... and the lack of oxygen caused the seizures .... this is just a speculation since I wasnt there .....



Dan, Registered Respiratory Therapist

ARDS is Adult Respiratory Distress Syndrome.  

What happens in ARDS is your lungs become very difficult to ventilate.  The alveoli in your lungs are little balloons, and have you ever blown up a balloon that was really difficult to blow up?  To keep your little lung balloons inflated, the alveoli have a liquid in them called surfactant.  In ARDS, the surfactant is depleted.  

It happens when your lungs are really injured by whatever.....pneumonia is one of the possible causes.

In ARDS, they had to give you a lot of ventilatory support.  You were on oxygen on the ventilator, and positive pressure.

It's not unheard of for someone to seize during the intubation.  You really had a tough time of it, and I hope you are all better.

For the nurses who thought you were too young to have this, they must not have much pediatric intensive care experience.  We see this in our PICU.  You see it in NICU as well, premature babies go through much the same thing.

ARDS was first identified during the Viet Nam war.  It used to be called wet lung, shock lung, or DaNang lung.  It occurred within 12 to 24 hours following trauma, or 5 to 10 days following sepsis that involved shock (thus the name shock lung).  When cases of apparent pulmonary edema(accumulation of fluid in lungs) were not responding to typical therapy, they discovered that they were dealing with more than simple edema.  The capillaries of the lungs had become permeable to blood, so bleeding was also occurring in the lungs.  At the same time, the blood was clotting. So, bleeding and clotting were both present in the lungs.  Gas exchange in the air sacs (alveoli) was severely reduced, and many died before the correct treatment was discovered. They found that by administering anticoagulants (blood thinners) along with steroids (to reverse the porosity of capillaries) they could treat the bleeding and clotting.  In order to get air both in and out of the alveoli, they needed a special type of ventilator called PEEP which stands for positive end -expiratory pressure.  Today we know this can happen not only following trauma or sepsis, but following other disorders, such as blood and metabolic toxic disorders, drug overdoses, aspirations, etc.  Pneumonia is any inflammatory disease involving the filling of alveoli with fluid and/or blood cells. ARDS shares in many characteristics of pneumonia, but is not considered to be a form of pneumonia. ARDS can develop during a bout of pneumonia.