In ’97, my other lung collapsed and they could not get it to “stick” again. Had the chemical pluerodesis performed and it has held fine (but still no diagnosis of BHD). Over the years, I became more and more out-of-shape, mostly from fear of suffering another pneumo.

In 2007, I got the diagnosis of BHD as kind of a fluke–a dermatologist who was removing a mole noticed my white bumps and asked me out of the blue if I’d ever suffered from collapsed lungs. When I replied that I had, he connected the dots and told me to get myself in for an ultrasound of my kidneys. Sure enough, I had a big ugly mass hanging off my left kidney. Anyhoo, the threat of the upcoming kidney surgery was a strong catalyst for getting myself back into shape. I began “fast walking”, using a treadmill and also taking every opportunity to walk somewhere rather than drive, as well as becoming more careful with my diet. After six months, I found that I had shed 35-lbs. and brought my blood pressure down almost 20 points. I had the kidney removed in Dec. 2008 and bounced back pretty quickly. I’ve continued my 45 – 60 minute walks every day and I’ve also returned to push-ups and sit-ups. And now, at age 50, I’m in better shape than I’ve been since I was in my 20s.

I guess this is all to encourage you to get back on the excercise bandwagon. It certainly doesn’t have to be strenuous, just regular and persistent. I do things like walk around the mall when my wife & daughter are shopping, or walk to the library/movie rental/whatever rather than taking the bus or car. It’s amazing how many opportunities there are to get in a good walk, even if only for 15 minutes here and there.

Best wishes!
Drew

I was packing for a trip to the states for me and my family and had alot on my mind. I had also just helped my husband put together bunk beds, then he had a vasectomy and so I was doing alot of the heavy lifting and running around taking care of everyone/everything in the house (3 young kids here and I homeschool). So perhaps it was stress related on top of maybe doing more than usual physically (except that I do normally do cardio 5-6 days/week and weights 2-3 days/week)

It is frustrating now, having to take it slow and feeling so flabby!! But very encouraging to hear about your 4 hour bicycling! Wow!

Like you I have BHD. Over the years I’ve had pneumothoraxes in both lungs, and have ended up having the pluerodesis operation on both lungs too. I’m a keen cyclist and regular gym attendee.

I do think the pleurodesis has slightly taken the edge off my ultimate cardiovascular fitness – I just don’t seem to have exactly the lung capacity that I used to have, and I do wonder sometimes if another effect of gluing the lung to the side of your chest is that it might restrict your ability to take rapid breaths (?). But, that said, the differences are relatively minor and I’d have to say ageing probably has just as big an effect on my fitness potential.

What I did find though is that the pleurodesis “reset” my cardiovascular fitness back to zero. Before each of my pleurodesis I was really fit – my resting heart rate in my hospital bed leading up to my last operation was about 48bpm. But each operation took that fitness back to zip and it was frustrating to have to start from scratch again and slowly rebuild my base fitness. I went from that resting heart rate in the 40s to having to take the stairs to the upper level in our house in two stages because my lungs were hurting so much and I couldn’t breath fast enough.

So my take is that once your pneumothorax is totally healed – and given your BHD diagnosis and your experiences with recurring problems I’m a little surprised you haven’t had a pleurodesis – there should be no impediment to getting back to a good level of fitness, apart from the frustration of having to start right from nothing and slowly build up. I’d say it took me about 6 months to get back to a level of fitness where I could walk around and climb stairs etc without getting a little pain in my chest and slight shortness of breath. And then it just took the “standard” time to build up to more rigourous exercise and building back to a high level of fitness. Now – 3 years after my second, and last, pleurodesis – I am riding 3-4 hours at a time and hammering up hills and so on without problems.

For my part too I suspect that the pneumothoraxes I’ve had have been stress related – that somehow the stress causes a bleb to burst. I don’t think mine have been exertion related.