What are the side effects of asbestos exposure?

It’s a very slow-moving disease, with a latency period of 50 to 55 years for mesothelioma. That means from the time you’re exposed, that amount of time has to pass before the disease appears, and nobody really understands why. Even medical scientists don’t fully know the reason for this delay.

Essentially, the way asbestos works is that you breathe it in. It goes into your lung tissue. It’s microscopic, it doesn’t dissolve, it doesn’t go away, and it embeds itself in the lining of your lungs.

You’re not going to feel anything or notice any symptoms at first. If you have a heavy enough exposure, we refer to that as calcified pleural plaques. With enough asbestos exposure, scar tissue actually develops in your lungs, and this can be seen on an X-ray. That scarring is an injury in itself.

Over time, this scarring decreases your oxygenation and your ability to take in oxygen. Because of the long latency period, once the disease appears, whether it’s lung cancer or mesothelioma, that’s when you have a cause of action.

Most people who develop mesothelioma don’t have those pleural plaques. The disease often just shows up suddenly.

The most common symptoms are shortness of breath and pain near the kidney area. What’s happening is that fluid builds up between the lining of your lung and the lung itself, compressing the lung and making it harder to breathe.

After you start experiencing those symptoms, you’ll usually have an X-ray. The X-ray will show white areas, indicating fluid. Doctors will generally drain the fluid, and you could have anywhere from a liter to three or four liters removed, depending on whether it’s in the lung or the abdominal cavity, because it can occur in both places.

After that, a biopsy is performed to confirm pathologically whether it’s mesothelioma or lung cancer.