Living with COPD and Chronic Bronchitis

Living with a chronic lung condition, like COPD, can be challenging. Symptoms like a lasting cough or trouble clearing mucus can make breathing even harder. Understanding your condition and knowing your treatment options can help you take control of your health.

What Is Chronic Bronchitis?

Chronic bronchitis is a condition of COPD in which your lungs get inflamed or irritated and fill with mucus. The main symptom is a cough with sputum production that happens often for three months or more each year for two years in a row. Chronic bronchitis never goes away, but the symptoms can get better with medications and treatment.

If chronic bronchitis does not get treated, you may have:

  • Constant coughing
  • Chest tightness or discomfort
  • Frequent lung infections
  • Less energy than normal
  • Impact on quality of life

Over time, these symptoms may make breathing harder. When it's hard to breathe, it's harder to do things you enjoy.

Taking the Next Step

If you or your loved one is living with COPD and/or chronic bronchitis, here are some important steps to consider:

  • Talk to your health care provider about your symptoms.
  • Ask if there are any treatment options to help you feel and breathe better.
  • Ask questions about ways to have less mucus in the lungs.
  • Join the COPD Foundation newsletter to stay up to date on new treatments that may help improve your symptoms. Sign up here!

Explore Our Educational Resources

The educational materials section on our website has helpful tools and educational resources designed to support the COPD community. One of our key resources is the free and printable Pocket Consultant Guide (PCG) card. This tool helps guide conversations about your treatment options with your doctor and connects you with the treatment that best fits your needs.

New Information from Research

Reckitt has recently completed a 12-week study to see how some treatment options may help with mucus clearance in people with stable chronic bronchitis. People who participated in this study provided insight on the following outcomes:

  • Treatment compliance
  • Treatment satisfaction
  • Improvement in how often they coughed
  • Improvement in the amount of mucus in their chest
  • Improvement in their quality of life
  • How well the treatment was tolerated

Interested in learning more? Read highlights of the study.

For healthcare professionals: you can register on the Reckitt HCP site for additional resources.

The COPD Foundation is proud to collaborate with organizations that support education, awareness, and research for chronic lung conditions. Reckitt is a valued Corporate Supporter, and their support allows us to share resources with our community.

If you have any questions, please contact us at CorporatePartners@COPDFoundation.org.