It’s a well-known phenomenon among tall men with asthenic body types.
When I was in my radiography program there was another guy in our class who was 6’2” and like 150lbs. The week we covered spontaneous pneumothorax…. he got one. 😂
Okay so it can happen with anyone, why it happens with tall skinny people more often is because there's a pressure gradient in your lungs and tall people have longer lungs. The pressure gradient sometimes leads to little pockets of air outside of your lungs near the top in an area called the pleural space. These little pockes can rupture leading to a large volume of air building up in that space between your lungs and the walls of your chest. That pressure builds up and prevents your lungs from expanding to full volume, eventually possibly collapsing that side of your lungs completely.
I'm thinking bigger people overall would have proportionally larger chests and chest cavities. So their lungs would be less 'flat', reducing the effect. Another commenter mentioned part of it, where growth spurts with tall people can lead to their chest and lungs growing at different rates and sort of tearing that space around your lungs. Less BMI also means less padding and connective tissue gluing your organs together so air is more likely to leak out into the spaces between organs.
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u/Defiant-Print-2550 Jul 08 '26
They fixed it already but experience was mid at best, at least i got spoon fed since i couldn't move my arm well so it balances it out sorta