This may sound like a weird or stupid question, but can smokers have wheezing without COPD?
I had an OB patient last week who smoked during her pregnancy, and delivered a 5 lb 13 oz, otherwise healthy baby. On the 2nd day post-cesarean, she developed atelectasis and had dyspnea. No pneumonia yet according to CXR. Anyway, I listened to her lungs and at the apices, she had wheezing and pretty much coorifice breath sounds every else that would improve with her breathing deeply and coughing. I used to hate it when nurses would chart "coorifice breath sounds" because I didn't know what that meant. Now I do! Her lung sounds were very course, kinda like rhonchi, but the word "coorifice" described it best. My question is, do my findings make sense? Do you think she just has more secretions being a smoker and thus has these sounds?
