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What Could A Diagnosis Mean for Me?

A diagnosis of COPD means that you will have to adopt a new lifestyle.  You will have to change your daily activities.  The following suggestions cover a few of the lifestyle changes you would have to adopt if you have COPD.   

Living with COPD

You would have to make sure you receive all your shots.  Many local pharmacies and grocery stores offer these shots. The flu shot helps to ensure you do not get sick.

You would need to avoid germs at home and during outings. 

• Wash your hands often
• Avoid touching your mouth, eyes and nose

Extra care would need to be taken to avoid fatigue and illness.

• Only eat healthy snacks
• Consume lots of water
• Get plenty of sleep.  When your body is tired, you are more likely to get sick.
• You would need to avoid getting fatigued by doing a little at a time
• Prescriptions would need to be kept filled and a proper dosing schedule followed.

Careful planning is a must to handle daily living with COPD.  You would need to make note of what items at home or work you use most often and keep them within reach. 

You would need to get rid of dust in your home and work to make the air in your home very clean.  Clean often, remove clutter, and change the air filters often.

Treatments for COPD

COPD can be treated by daily and/or rescue medicine.  Also used to treat COPD are oxygen and surgery.  You would need to follow your treatment schedule.  You would not be able to stop your treatments even if you began to feel better. 

Daily medicines include short and long acting bronchodilators.  You would need to breathe these in every day to keep your lungs open. 

Rescue medicines are those that you breathe in when your COPD worsens.  The most common one is albuterol.  You would need to take this medicine whenever you needed help breathing.

Oxygen is also a treatment for some patients whose lungs cannot give their body the amount it needs.  A doctor measures how much oxygen is in the blood with pulse oximetry.  Your doctor would then tell you how much you would need based on your records.

Surgery is also a choice for some patients.  Sometimes, COPD patients can have lung transplants.  Another type is called lung volume reduction.  This is when the surgeon removes the sickest part of the lung.  Some people cannot have surgery.