Cystic Fibrosis

Patient Presenting With Specific Symptoms

The pancreas is an organ in the body that produces enzymes that help the body digest meals and absorb nutrients (John Hopkins Medicine, 2020). In the pancreas, CF creates an enzyme deficit. Indigestion and nutritional malabsorption are caused by a lack of pancreatic enzymes, which explains the child’s stomach pain from crying, failure to flourish, and lack of weight gain despite a healthy appetite. In addition, CF causes the body’s chloride and sodium ion channels to malfunction, resulting in excess sodium and chloride deposits on the skin’s surface, which gives the infant a salty taste when the mother kisses him. CF also generates thicker mucus in the lungs, which may restrict the airway and create chest tightness (National Library of Medicine, 2021).

Physiologic Response to Stimulus

The failure of the CF transmembrane regulator causes mucus blockage in the pancreatic ducts, which blocks pancreatic enzymes and causes viscid mucus in the bronchioles. As shown in the scenario, all of these factors lead to digestion, constipation, chest congestion with nasal airflow blockage, and failure to flourish.

Cells involved in the Process

Epithelial cells in the lungs, digestive tract, pancreas, hepatobiliary system, sweat glands, and reproductive system produce a defective protein called CF transmembrane regulators, which is found in cells that line the lungs, digestive tract, pancreas, hepatobiliary system, sweat glands, and reproductive system (McCance & Huether, 2019).

Another Characteristic Changing Response

CF gene transfer and disease presentation are independent of gender. If both parents have normal genes and are not CF carriers, the CF gene may not have been handed down to the kid; thus, further information and tests are required to discover the source of the child’s symptoms, which might be due to other genetic or environmental factors.