The air sacs don't exactly collapse. Think of a bunch of grapes, with each grape as an air sac. What happens in emphysema is that the air sacs sort of grow together: think of a small bunch of grapes as a small section of your lung. Now think of the grapes as being shrink wrapped; that's what really happens. There's still surface for the exchange of gases, but it's much less surface than the surface represented by all the individual grapes before the damage occurred. So the lavage treatment can be done in people with COPD; but it's not done often.

Thanks everyone for your answers. I hope I never have to have this done it sounds really scary to me and maybe painful while its being done.

My mother would do it about twice a year and she said it did her wonderful.. He doctor said she could do it as often as she deeded.

I don't think so, but I really don't know. Ask your pulmonologist or an RT or someone in your pulmo's office. They might know. I do know what you mean, but experience it very rarely, so I don't pay attention much to it. You might figure out what's going on if you can think about what happened just before that breathing pattern occurs.

I think that is the Nitrogen wash that Sharona was posting about a few days ago. It is where they have you breathe pure oxygen into your lungs and normal breathing in and out until all the nitrogen in your lungs is gone.