My Story With My 3 Pneumothorax's
Hello.
I just want to share my story now that my Lung troubles are behind me and hopefully share some things i learned regarding my experience with my 3 Spontaneous pneumothorax's and figuring out why my lung was doing what it was. I hope this helps anyone going through this scary event and can give some insight to how this can be both much bigger than people think but also that there's always a light at the end of the tunnel. For starters i want to let people know that I'm a 25 yo man, 5'9, and who's a bit outta shape after having my son but not super overweight and my diet is relatively good. Its probably just dad weight. (this is for context later.)
This all started a few days before my birthday in November of 2024. I woke up in the morning with a pain in my top right shoulder. Light but persistent and sharp. didn't think too much about is as my job is very physically demanding and i figured i pulled something or slept wrong. no Biggie and took some ibuprofen and got ready for work. as i was getting clothes on and making breakfast i noticed the pain gradually increasing. i was getting concerned as this pain was noticeable and got a little worst with each breathe. still said "its probably going to go away on it own right?" I was wrong. so wrong. i have a 30 minute drive to work and every minute was excruciating. i drove with tears and my right arm over my head to keep the pain down. I got to work in so much pain. like i felt like i was choking and was struggling to take deep breathe. Needless to say i needed my GF to take me to the our local emergency room just from the shear pain. when i arrived and got checked in. they pretty quickly took me back for a chest xray(First of many) and said i had a spontaneous pneumothorax and was put on oxygen for 18 hours. this found out only made it worst and i needed to have a chest tube put in to suck the gas out. the entire time i was there i was asking my doctors and nurses why this was happening to me. what's the reason for this. Unfortunately i got no answers as to why i had this happen and was consistently told that this happens to men sometimes. I couldn't make sense of this answer as i never heard of men just having this happen. especially men in my family. I was the first man to have this happen as far as im aware. so this was so scary for me at the time. I was released about 6 days later after my lung closed up and held air on its own. and i figured there would be a future follow up to see what might be happening and next steps but there wasn't one. they just sent me home and said it could happen again but maybe not. and if it did to come back to the hospital where they'll investigate further. Noting that if it happens again that it'll feel the same as the first time.
I went back to living my life but always worried about what ifs. I just couldn't accept there answer and wanted to find a solution to my problem that literally no one thought was a problem. We arrive to mid January of 2026 when that identical pain arose again. literally the same way too. I woke up with this light pain in my right shoulder that wouldn't go away. this time it was a Saturday where i didn't have to work so i just went to the hospital with my GF and my 11 month son to the emergency room once again. I get checked in and once again got brought to xray where sure enough im having a 2nd spontaneous pneumothorax. I wear the oxygen mask again and this time i feel the pain getting worse with each breathe. after 6 hours of me telling each nurse that comes in to check on me that this is not working. they do a xray again and it got worst. Got another chest tube put in that evening. this time during my stay i get way more doctor visitors then before. the 2 main people are the hospitals thoracic surgeon and there pulmonologist. They both made a comment as to how strange it is for a man of my build to be dealing with repeat pheumos as I'm not skinny, super tall. or even a smoker(for context i don't smoke or even vape and people around me know that i dont like it). this made me just wonder more as to what is going on with my lung and why this kept happening to me. i made sure i wrote down every question that came to mind over the past year on my phone and asked them both dozens of questions. I was determined to find a answer. there was no way there wasn't something wrong with me that causes the same issue twice. and i spent the whole 7 days i spent in the hospital searching for answers or even leads to my issue(That lead me to this reddit post im on now). Unfortunately when talking to both doctors i felt like they really didn't know why this was happening and just following a script. like my concerns and my need to figure out why this is happening is a minuet point and i should drop this issue. and to add to that my thoracic surgeon when i was talking to him literally ignored my girlfriend and it felt like he was strong-arming me into a choice without taking my concerns into considerations. This made me anxious as he was really trying to get me a pleurodesis ASAP. this made me feel like i was being ignored and i really couldn't do the surgery with him due to his demeanor. In any case i had follow up x-rays, a lung test, High Powered CT Scan and consults for the pulmonologist and the surgeon. After all this the pulmonologist said that if i wanted the surgery i could but he felt it was not needed due to my age, I'm still very healthy overall, and my lung test passed with flying colors(I was told i had "super normal lungs" by him directly but he still couldn't give me a reason for my lung collapsing.). This lead me to make the decision that ill do the pleurodesis but wanted to wait a bit and build some of my finances since i was told i would be out for over a month in recovery(I was told this).
This leads to my 3rd spontaneous pneumothorax in July of 2026 out of nowhere. This time i wasnt sleeping but rather was helping a friend fix a thermostat on there car as i have some experience with doing that. I was laying on the ground putting on a undercover for the bumper, when i stood up i got a sharp pain yet again in my right shoulder. I hoped that the pain was just from laying on asphalt but deep down i knew it was happening again. i finished fixing there car and told them to head home so i can go to the hospital again. once again my gf drives me down. thankfully her mom could watch our son this week so my gf can stay with me. third time around i knew the drill and was more annoyed then scared at this point. Xray shows once again that i had a spontaneous pneumothorax. the doctor on staff(This was around midnight at the time so only the er staff was there) said they'll probably need to do a pleurodesis due to the fact this was my third time and will need to let there surgeon know. and as i was already saving to do this surgery as a outpatient so i kind of knew this was what they were going to recommend. Now say what you want here but i looked back to the numerous conversations i had with the Pulmonologist and the surgeon and said to myself in that moment that I'm going to have the surgery but this surgeon will not be operating on me and i told the er doctor as such. I couldn't trust the surgeon enough to entrust him with my body. This surprisingly lead to me getting discharged an hour later by the er doctor since technically the spontaneous pneumothorax wasn't very big this time and i could "Just sleep it off and if it gets worst to come back". I was astonished by this as i have a history at this point and it just never went away. and my GF said its probably because i told the er doctor i wasn't going to let the surgeon work on me.
So i go home and try to sleep with my lung actively getting worst. I didn't sleep that night and it got worst by morning. at this point I'm very disappointed in my local hospital and decide to have my GF drive me 2 hours to the states capital hospital the morning of(9am or so). I got to say that once i made this choice and got there to be seen. i felt like the doctors there were more attentive to my concerns and the level of care i got there was overall better.(It wasnt perfect and the AC in the wing i was in was down but overall the people there were better.)
In conclusion my new thoracic surgeon and pulmonologist were amazing and they preformed a pleurodesis on my right side as well as took 2 pieces of lung tissue out of my right lung to study what could be causing this. 1 from my lung itself and 1 from my pleura. I was out of work for only 12 days total but on light duty for 2 months since i changed jobs and my new job is little to no physical labor. Now to the topic of WHY. Well im going to try and explain it as i understand it but keep in mind i have no medical background and if someone who does can explain this better or if im explaining it wrong please let me know but basically i had emphysema like symptoms in my right lung as well as a thin lung wall on the top back of it.(They said this is probably the spot as my second and third time the phuemo was so small when they did the Xray they found a area it could be happening but they cant say for certain.) My thoracic surgeon said these things separately wouldn't cause a spontaneous pneumothorax. But its the fact they happened together in the same area cause this issue to occur multiple times. as of this post im fully recovered and feel great. Im also not worried about this anymore and feel like this issue is behind me. however this surgery does have some things i now have to live with. Mainly with the incision sites and my overall mental health. the incisions don't hurt now but whenever i scratch around them the area feels numb and im not a fan of it but learning to live with it. and as for my mental health im struggling to love my body with these new scars, and the toll of dealing with this for 2 years while both moving to a new home, starting a new job, learning to being a father to my son, and me being the sole provider for our household have really drained me mentally and i feel so depressed/ Mentally tired a majority of the time. but overall ill take those downsides over the consistent lung collapses, hospital visits, Medical Bills, and just continuous worry for my body. it also helps that i had a great support system(especially my GF who stood by me each time this happened and made sure i was supported while recovering and also handling our son.) while i was going through this and help me get through this period in my life.
once again i hope this helps whoever is going through this and i appreciate this being here to help people navigating pneumothorax's.
Take Care!