How to treat a 64- year old person who is complaining of chest tightness and pressure?

Hi,

Welcome to icliniq.com. Thanks for the query. I can understand your concern. According to your statement, your patient has been suffering from squeezing breathlessness or pressure in the chest during sitting position for the past year. According to the echo report, pulmonary arterial pressure is 34 mmHg and if PAP (Pulmonary Artery Pressure) is more than or equal to 25 mmHg, then it may indicate the presence of pulmonary hypertension. Your patient may need some investigations like CT (Computed tomography), pulmonary angiogram to obtain an image of pulmonary arteries, Repeat ECHO (echocardiogram) to exclude any cardiac abnormalities, HRCT ( High-resolution computed tomography) of the chest as the patient had a history of exposure to cotton dust, sleep apnea test should also be done as the patient had a history of mild sleep apnea in her previous test, pulmonary function tests to know respiratory causes, etc. Treatment depends on causes. So, your patient should undergo the above-mentioned investigations to detect the underlying causes for the patient's present sufferings and then treat them accordingly. Take care. In case of any other queries kindly reach back.

Hello,

Welcome back to icliniq.com. Thanks for the query. According to the x-ray films attached here (attachment removed to protect the patient's identity), pulmonary infections are found. For that reason, the doctor has already advised taking antibiotics like Azithromycin. Your patient's present pulmonary infections may be resulted from the previous COVID-19 infection or as a consequence of COVID-19 infection. So, the pulmonary infection may be derived from a viral origin, and antibiotics have no role in viral infection. But during viral infections or after viral infections, the body is more prone to develop any secondary opportunistic infections like any type of pulmonary infections. As your patient has already developed pulmonary infection according to the chest x-ray view, antibiotics like Azithromycin are indicated here to prevent secondary infections. Your patient should undergo HRCT (high resolution computed tomography) of the chest to determine the involvement of infection on different lobes and severity scores. If HRCT of the chest reveals the presence of covid pneumonia or pneumonia as a complication of covid infection, then antiviral medications may be needed along with antibiotics. Weakness is a common outcome of post-covid infection which may persist from days to months. Take care. Let me know if I can assist you further. The probable cause is COVID-19 infection. It is best to take HRCT (high-resolution CT) of the chest.