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Wednesday, March 6, 2019

The return of the stridor

Of my various, complicated, and just plain annoying medical problems the main issue for the past five or so years has been something called Stridor. Not to be confused with Aragorn from lord of the rings who's alias is strider, Stridor is defined by the CHOP (the children's hospital of Philadelphia) as;

"Stridor is noisy breathing that occurs due to obstructed air flow through a narrowed airway. Stridor breathing is not in and of itself a diagnosis, but rather is a symptom or sign that points to a specific airway disorder.
The timing and the sound of your child's noisy breathing provides clues to the type of airway disorder:
  • Inspiratory stridor occurs when your child breathes in and it indicates a collapse of tissue above the vocal cords. 
  • Expiratory stridor occurs when your child breathes out and it indicates a problem further down the windpipe. 
  • Biphasic stridor occurs when your child breathes in and out, and it indicates a narrowing of the subglottis, the cartilage right below the vocal cords." 

The stridor that I have is Biphasic stridor caused by paradoxical vocal fold motion also known as vocal cord dysfunction and occurs when the vocal cords close during inhalation and open during exhalation, the opposite of their normal motion, in addition to paralysis of both vocal cords. The paralysis and Pvfm are not as bad as they once were but the thing is, the stridor returned out of nowhere. I had a coughing fit last Monday around 10:45 AM and that set off wheezing which then set off the stridor. I've had a cold the last couple of weeks though not bad enough to be the kind of virus that usually triggers thing. As for specific viral triggers we do not have any and the flare ups are not a set pattern. They usually occur once to four times per year. This particular flare up is confusing, and annoying and occurred at not the best timing as a new term will be beginning soon as is course selection for next year. Final projects are already beginning to be outlined in class. We don't see Dr Hartnick my ENT until next Friday though we are calling the pulmonary department to set up an appointment today and he will have the reports from the ER and impatient unit. It's all a big continuing mystery. I don't know how I got through classes every day in 7th grade stridoring especially when it was at its worst point...

For more information on stridor click here: CHOP stridor full article
For more information on vocal cord dysfunction click here: National Jewish Health VCD article
For more information on vocal cord paralysis click here: Mass Eye and Ear VCP article

Until next time,
Max

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