Rheumatoid arthritis can cause inflammation in your lungs, which can lead to pleuritis (pleurisy), a condition that makes breathing painful.
Rheumatoid nodules canalso form in your lungs. Usually, they’re harmless, but can lead to problems such as a collapsed lung, coughing up blood, infection, or pleural effusion, which is fluid build-up between the lining of your lung and your chest cavity.
Interstitial lung diseases, which involve scarring of the lung tissue and pulmonary hypertension, a type of high blood pressure that damages arteries in the lung and heart, can also develop as complications from rheumatoid arthritis.