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Symptoms of Cystic Fibrosis

Affected organs of the body

Cystic fibrosis is a genetic disorder ubiquitous among people in North America, certain countries of northern Europe and extremely rare in India. The disease is characterized by persistent bacterial infection of respiratory tract, lungs and sinuses. The children and young adults are the most common targets of the disease. Basically the secretory glands viz. sweat glands, mucous glands, pancreatic glands as well as other digestive enzyme secreting glands are affected most in the patients. All the glands are aggravated to secrete a thick, viscous and sticky fluid, referred as mucus. The small vessels of the lungs, sometimes, were blocked with mucus and condition may turn out to be serious and even life-threatening.

The commonly developed symptoms in cystic fibrosis are describes as following.

1. Continuous sweating with high salt content

The people suffering from cystic fibrosis has consistently higher sweating rate than common healthy people. Salt concentrations in the sweat are almost seven to eight times higher than the normal one. This occurs due to impaired functioning of the ion channels found in sweat glands.

2. Excessive coughing and wheezing

In patients of cystic fibrosis, mucus glands are provoked to secrete thick mucus. To get rid of the hindrance in lungs and respiratory tract, the body tries to remove the mucus out and the patient suffers much due to consistent pain in throat and lungs and continuous wheezing.

3. Uneasy breathing

Excessive coughing and inflammation in respiratory tract leads to uneasiness in normal breathing process in the patient.

4. Lung Infection

Lungs are severely prone to be infected by the bacterial attack. Inflammation in lungs may lead to abnormal functioning causing pneumonic condition. The situation may sometimes reach to permanent destruction of the lungs. Lungs are associated with blood purification and detoxification of the circulatory fluid. So, in the patient of cystic fibrosis, blood purification process is highly hampered.

5. Indigestion and malnutrition

Patients suffer with blocked streaming of digestive fluids and enzymes which results in the improper digestion of food. The person always feels the fullness of the stomach as well as continuous pain in this region. Body becomes weak due to malnutrition within a few days,.

6. Dark and smelly stool

As the food could not be digested properly due to loss of enzymes in the patients, the undigested fat comes out through the stool. This results in foul smelling and sticky stool and the patient feel it difficult to extcrete.

7. Clubbing

In medicine, the term clubbing is defined as swelling of finger and toes due abnormal blood circulation. In fact, this condition is achieved by the patients due to malfunctioning of lungs and so the abnormal supply and transportation of oxygen from lungs into blood.

8. Body weakness

As digestion is affected in the body, the patient, suffering from cystic fibrosis, loses his weight soon and is physically weak. The thickness of hairs increases with the loss in shining and the color turns to brown.

9. Delayed puberty and infertility

The loss in the hormonal secretion by sexual glands leads to delay in puberty both in males and females. In males, the formation of sperm is not influenced due to blockage of Vas deferens. About 96% patients suffering with this disease are infertile.

10. Diabetes

In some cases of cystic fibrosis, patient suffers with some kind of diabetes. This is due to impaired secretion in insulin and glucagon, two hormones regulating the sugar level in the blood.

No cure is available for cystic fibrosis but parallel treatment for the correlated diseases can be applied for the extended life.

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