DEAR DR. DONOHUE: Since I was 5 years old, I have been a skier. I am 25 now. About a month ago, when I was skiing, I got a terrific pain in the right side of my chest and I couldn’t breathe. I had to lie down in the snow and wait for the ski patrol. They finally did come, and they got me off the slope and into an ambulance.

At the hospital, the doctors found that I had a collapsed lung. They said I had developed an air leak. I’m not too clear on what happened and what was done for me. Will you fill me in? Can this happen again? Can I continue to ski? No one told me I couldn’t. – M.D.

ANSWER: Piecing your story together, I’d have to say you had a pneumothorax (NEW-moe-THOR-axe). Each lung is enclosed in a double-ply baggie called the pleura. There’s a small space between the pleural leaves. On the top part of your lung, you must have had a bleb – a giant blisterlike affair. Blebs are fairly common and usually are not troublesome. Yours broke, and air from the lung leaked between the two sheets of pleura. It expanded like a balloon and compressed the lung. The result is severe chest pain, great shortness of breath and sometimes a cough. It often happens to healthy young men and doesn’t indicate any serous underlying condition, for most.

If the entire lung collapses, as yours did, the air has to be evacuated from the pleural space quickly. Doctors place a tube in the chest, which suctions out the air. Once that happens, the lung expands and everything generally returns to normal.

It can happen again. However, these days a common practice is to obliterate the plural space by making the two pleural leaves stick to each other. That’s done in a number of ways, and it prevents a recurrence. You have to ask the doctor who took care of you if this was done. I would be surprised if it wasn’t.

Yes, you can return to skiing.

DEAR DR. DONOHUE: My thyroid gland is acting up. The doctor says it makes too much thyroid hormone. He wants to give me a radioactive drug. “Radioactive” makes my hair stand on end. I’m young and have not started a family, but I would like to. Does this radioactive thing interfere with having children? – A.S.

ANSWER: The “radioactive thing” is radioactive iodine. Iodine finds its way to the thyroid gland like iron finds its way to a magnet. The radioactivity destroys the gland. It’s like having surgery without any cutting.

Too much thyroid hormone makes people’s hearts beat fast, gives them trembling hands, upsets menstrual periods, increases appetite without increasing weight and does a host of other undesirable things. It shifts the body into overdrive.

Treatment with radioactive iodine has been going on for many years. During that time, no patient has become infertile, and no patient has developed cancer from the treatment. Your hair can return to its resting position on your head.

Thyroid gland problems are common. The booklet on this gland explains both an underactive and an overactive gland. Readers can order a copy by writing: Dr. Donohue, No. 401, Box 536475 Orlando, FL 32853-6475. Enclose a check or money order (no cash) for $4.75 U.S./$6 Can. with the recipient’s printed name and address. Please allow four weeks for delivery.

DEAR DR. DONOHUE: Whenever I read anything about diets, the material is always listed in grams. Grams mean nothing to me. Can you give me something I can compare it to? How much, for example, is 10 grams of fat? – K.A.

ANSWER: About every country in the world, except the United States, has adopted the metric system. Canada made the change some years ago, and Canadians cope with it quite well.

Thirty grams is 1 ounce. Therefore, 10 grams of fat is one-third of an ounce. If you want to visualize soft or liquid fat in spoonfuls, 10 grams of it equals about 2 teaspoons of soft margarine.

Dr. Donohue regrets that he is unable to answer individual letters, but he will incorporate them in his column whenever possible. Readers may write him or request an order form of available health newsletters at P.O. Box 536475, Orlando, FL 32853-6475. Readers may also order health newsletters from www.rbmamall.com