lung transplant?

March 5, 2024 1:00 PM

Has anyone here undergone a lung transplant? Stories? Info? Am open to all.
posted by longhaultrucker to Health & Fitness (7 answers total)

It would help to know the parameters of what you’re looking for.

I knew a friend of a friend who got a double lung transplant in the course of long-surviving cystic fibrosis. The transplant was successful, and she lived several more years. However, being born well before the discovery of new drugs and treatments for CF (like, read a book called “Alex, the Life of a Child,” that came out on the 80s), her body was really badly injured from other aspects of the disease and treatment, and she did die, I think some time in her 40s.

Hope it helps.
posted by toodleydoodley at 1:52 PM on March 5, 2024

The transplant community on Reddit - https://old.reddit.com/r/transplant/ - is active and has a lot of personal stories posted.
posted by Inspector.Gadget at 1:55 PM on March 5, 2024 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Thank you. When I wrote: "Am open to all" I believe I was setting the parameters. Thank you again for the anecdote.
posted by longhaultrucker at 1:55 PM on March 5, 2024 [1 favorite]

My dad had pulmonary fibrosis and received a single lung transplant in April 2016. It made a huge difference to his quality of life—he was able to travel and more or less be back to normal for a 70-year-old. Unfortunately about two years later he got cancer that I think was in part due to his lowered immune system from the anti-rejection medication. He died in December 2018.
So, it was a short time that he had the transplant but definitely worth it. The recovery was actually not bad! Within days of the transplant he was already much more mobile than he had been before.
Feel free to message me if you have any questions.
And as always a million thanks to the donor and his family.
posted by exceptinsects at 9:23 PM on March 5, 2024 [1 favorite]

I worked with someone with cystic fibrosis who had a double lung transplant in her mid-30s. She recovered well from that but then was hit with a heart infection and needed a heart transplant about a year and a half after her lung transplant. That one didn't go well and she passed away shortly after that surgery.
posted by machine at 6:48 AM on March 6, 2024

My dad had pulmonary fibrosis and then a double lung transplant around 2010. I don't think they even perform double lung transplants anymore. Initally, he responded well to the surgery but things cascaded downhill quickly, partially I believe due to the anti-rejection meds. He always required supplemental oxygen. Within a year, part of his bowel collapsed, requiring a re-section and colostomy that was supposed to be temporary but ended up being permanent. His kidneys failed and he had to go on dialysis for the rest of his life. He spent a signifcant part of his remaining 7 years on death's door. Infections and pneumonia were constant, he was in/out of the hospital regularly, juggling an extensive regimen of medication. In his last few years, he was too weak to cough up the mucus in his throat/lungs, requiring a tracheostomy so he could be suctioned more easily.

YMMV, and I'm not saying his experience is representative, but my dad had a real tough row to hoe after his transplant. I'm glad we had some of those years with him, but they were very difficult years for our family. Given my father's experience, I would personally think very long and hard about going through a similar transplant myself. Feel free to message me if you have more questions.
posted by gnutron at 6:59 AM on March 6, 2024

I don't think they even perform double lung transplants anymore.

I'll refrain from adding much because I am just a doctor who takes care of people with lung transplants, not a lung transplant recipient, but the vast majority of lung transplants in the US are bilateral (if anything, the rate of single lung transplants is declining over time).
posted by telegraph at 1:36 PM on March 6, 2024 [1 favorite]