Health Library
Conditions & Symptoms A–Z
Plain-language explanations of 60 conditions we treat at SIMS — written the way a consultant would explain them across the desk. Each entry sets out the symptoms, the point at which you should stop waiting, the tests usually advised and how the condition is treated here.
Browse the A–Z
Lungs & Breathing
Choose a system below to narrow the list to that body system.
Showing 5 of 60 conditions
Lungs & Breathing (5)
Asthma
Asthma is a condition in which the airways become inflamed and narrow, causing episodes of wheezing, cough and breathlessness. It is controllable in almost every patient, and the reason it so often is not controlled is that preventer inhalers are stopped as soon as the patient feels better.
Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease
COPD is long-term, largely irreversible narrowing of the airways, caused mainly by smoking and by years of exposure to biomass smoke from indoor cooking fires. Treatment cannot restore lost lung, but it reduces breathlessness, flare-ups and hospital admissions.
Pneumonia
Pneumonia is infection of the lung tissue, causing fever, cough and breathlessness. It is usually treatable at home in healthy adults, but it can be dangerous in infants, the elderly, and people with diabetes, COPD or kidney disease.
Pulmonary Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis is a bacterial infection that most often affects the lungs and spreads through the air when an untreated patient coughs. It is completely curable with a full course of treatment, and dangerous mainly when treatment is stopped halfway.
Obstructive Sleep Apnoea
Obstructive sleep apnoea is repeated collapse of the upper airway during sleep, interrupting breathing many times a night. It leaves people exhausted despite a full night in bed, and it worsens blood pressure, diabetes and heart rhythm problems.
These pages describe conditions in general terms. They cannot tell you what is wrong with you, and self-diagnosis delays treatment far more often than it speeds it up. For chest pain, stroke symptoms, breathing difficulty, serious injury, seizures or heavy bleeding, call 108 or come straight to the emergency department.
Found the condition but not the answer?
Every entry links to the department that treats it. Book a consultation and a specialist will tell you which parts of it apply to your case.