Symptoms
Like all pulmonary edema types, the most common symptom of neurogenic pulmonary edema is a sudden difficulty in breathing. This is because the fluid filling the lungs’ air sacs impairs their ability to transfer oxygen to the bloodstream. In severe cases, the patient may breathe heavily, even at rest.
Another symptom is coughing, which may produce pinkish, frothy, blood-tinged sputum. Patients may also experience wheezing, which is a high-pitched whistling sound heard while breathing and is caused by narrowing of the person’s airways through which air flows rapidly. Fast breathing and a pounding heart may also be felt. A concurrent fever is often present in cases with concomitant meningitis.
The patient obviously also presents with the neurological insult that predisposed to the pulmonary edema, which sometimes overshadows the lung disease.
