Hi. First of all, I want to apologize for asking so many questions lately, but I have been worried. Some days ago, I made a post asking if parenchymal scarring is synonymous with Pulmonary Fibrosis/Interstitial Disease, and the answer I recieved was no, which I have no reason to doubt. However, I am still worried.
I recieved my spirometry results that were taken when I was in the hospital with suspected community-acquired pneumonia (personally, I believe it was possibly aspiration pneumonia). My results were the following:
Pre-Bronchiodilator
Fev1 32%
FVC 57%
Post-Bronchiodilator
Fev1 37%
FVC 57%
Everything I read online insinuates that a low FVC in COPD represents "mixed lung disease" AKA obstructive and restrictive. I understand that air trapping can cause low FVC, but I thought that the bronchiodilator was supposed to solve that problem with the test. This, combined with the fact that my CT scan showed "severe empysematous changes with underlying parenchymal scarring throughout both lungs, diffuse ground glass opacity possibly representing superimposed pneumonitis/pulmonary edema, concern for scarring atelactasis vs pneumonia, and bilateral lower lobe opacities" has me worried, because all of those seem to be related mainly to ILD/Restrictive Diseases. I also looked at a CT scan from 2022 that said "right basilar opacity probably representing pneumonia superimposed on chronic Interstitial Disease. Nobody ever said anything to me about it then, or now. I asked one of my doctors at the hospital and they said I have scarring, but not PF/ILD. If that's the case, why do I have so many of these seemingly-ILD related abnormalities compared with a low FVC?