Hi everyone. I´m from Argentina, so sorry for my poor English in advance.
I´m 36, and I smoke about 5 cigarettes per day for the last 5 years. I started smoking in 2018. I´m a healtlhy person, in shape and do excercise 2 or 3 days a week since I was a child.
About 4 months ago, I had a strong fever for a few days, a persistent cough and some episodes of mild dyspnea for about 3 weeks. I went to my doctor and he prescribed me an antibiotic, with which my symptoms disappeared in a few days. He also asked me to do a chest x-ray and a CT.
The results in the CT showed "incipient signs of paraseptal emphysema", which terrifies me to this day.
My doctor said me that I probably had pneumonia caused by covid, and that the most advisable thing was to see a pulmonologist.
Today I saw a pulmologist and he performed a spirometry on me. This are the results:
Initial saturation: 96%
Final saturation: 96%
FEF 25-75% Real Pre-Bd: 4.44 L/sec
FEV1/FVC Real Pre-Bd: 80 %
FEV1 Real Pre-Bd: 3.91 L
FVC Real Pre-Bd: 4,79 L
He said that my lungs are healthly and as long I quit smoking I will be fine, something that I'm going to try to do from now on. And I wil have to repeat the spirometry and the CT in one year from now.
My question is: "incipients signs of paraseptal emphysema" in the CT report does it mean that I truly have emphysema? The pulmonogist was not very clear when answering me this question, and I'm scared because I know it's a progressive disease and there's no cure.
And could that emphysema disappear in the future if it was caused as a consequence of a disease such as pneumonia?
I will see another pulmonogist in about one month to get a second opinion.
Thanks so much in advance.