Primary Spontaneous Pneumothorax

Dear Bro docs,

A client of mine was treated for primary spontaneous pneumothorax last week about 9 hours post training. He is a 30 y/o male, 5’7, 168 pounds. He lifts 3x/week, does 2x/week GPP. He has been training for one year, squats and pulls in the 400s. He does not smoke, no history of lung diseases/illnesses, no known family history. At approx. 4:45pm on 9/11 he experinced chest tightness and shortness of breath experienced while working at desk (sedentary office job). Loss of breath/rapid shallow breathing while slowly walking up stairs. Activity during the day - heavy weight lifting from 6am - 8am. Walking and jogging to and from office/gym. Sitting/standing remainder of the day until incident. He got diagnosed at the ER, and stayed over night. He was told by is ER doc that he should not lift as it would increase is likelihood of rupturing another bleb. He’s quite bummed because he was feeling well the day after the incident and wants to return to training as soon as possible. Have you had any experience with this condition? Can my guy train? Let me know if you need any additional information.

Matt Bickford

Did he have a Chest CT performed?

It sounds like he didn’t get a chest tube placed, so they thought this would resolve on its own?

He did get a chest tube. I’m not sure it he got a CT.

*if (typo)

Have a read of this article. Associations are being male, tall and thin. I have seen a couple in children with genetic problems with their connective tissue, which might explain the tall and thin issue. I think that as genetic investigations get around to it we’re going to find a greater number of mild connective tissue variants that will explain this type of problem https://academic.oup.com/icvts/article/21/2/195/766531

It’s certainly possible he has some sort of connective tissue disorder and/or additional blebs, though we don’t have a CT to tell us.

On the other hand, he’s 30 years old and has been training for over a year, and his symptoms onset while he was seated at a desk … which makes me hesitate to blame training for anything, you know?