What is COPD?
COPD stands for "Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease"
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Chronic means it won't go away
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Obstructive means partly blocked
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Pulmonary means in the lungs
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Disease means sickness
COPD is an umbrella term used to describe lung diseases associated with airflow obstruction. Generally speaking, Emphysema, Chronic Bronchitis, either alone or in combination falls into this category. COPD is a debilitating, life-threatening disease that is treatable but cannot be reversed. Emphysema & Chronic Bronchitis cause an excessive inflammatory process that, in time stretches out your lungs and causes them to lose the elasticity they need to move the air and help you breathe. This abnormality in lung function makes it difficult to exhale normally and permanently obstructs airflow.
The amount of obstruction and disease can be very significant before you begin to even feel short of breath. That is why early testing and diagnosis are so vitally important. You need every spare moment you can get to diagnose the disease and then learn to manage and control the disease in the hope you can slow the progression of the disease in your body. These diseases usually develop over many years, with the patient slowly losing his/her "Quality of Life."
Love Your Lungs, Breathe For Life is here to help you and your loved ones learn to cope with the emotional struggles, to understand the causes, signs and symptoms, diagnosis, and the treatments of Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease and to breathe to live.
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