Most doctors will suspect COPD if you have been or are a smoker and you have the symptoms that indicate the disease. He will probably ask you for your medical history and your symptoms and then refer you to a specialist so he can test, diagnose and prescribe treatment.
What you would need to do before this is to write down everything about yourself from a medical point of view. You have to be honest so that the doctor will be able to give you the right diagnosis. Here are a few questions that you could write down the answers to so the doctor finds it easier to try and diagnose your condition.
- How long have you had a cough?
- Do you feel breathless at times or all the time? Does even the slightest exertion make you tired and short of breath?
- Do you feel tired all the time?
- Do you ever wheeze and feel drawing your breath into your lungs a strain?
- Did you smoke a lot? How many years? How many cigarettes a day?
- Do you still smoke?
- Do you have a lot of phlegm? Do you need to clear your throat every morning? Do you have a cough for at least two months every year?
- Do you feel yourself getting worse every day?
Once the doctor has been through all these answers, he might have a few more questions to ask and if he feels you should go in for further tests – which he will if he suspects COPD – then he will recommend some tests which will point the way. Before you do your tests, he will do a physical exam to listen to the sound of your lungs to see if there is a problem. This will be done with his stethoscope and he will be able to tell if there is wheezing or labored breathing. He will also be able to tell if there is hyperinflation of the lungs, which could happen because some air is trapped within the lungs. If he feels there is no problem at all, he will look for other conditions that it could be, depending on your symptoms. One of the first tests he will ask you to do is a simple one called the Spirometry test which will help measure the amount of air that you can hold in the lungs and how quickly you can blow that air out. This will help the doctor determine the state of your lungs and their capacity. He will also ask you to have a blood test as well as a sputum test so other conditions can be eliminated. A test called the blood gas test will also need to be done to check the oxygen and carbon dioxide in your blood to see if the gas exchange at the arterial level is working.
He might also ask you to have an X-ray taken of the chest. This would be to diagnose if you have emphysema or if there are other complications that could be responsible for your symptoms. A CT scan could also be recommended to make absolutely sure about the state of the lungs. Any aberration or infection will show up and it helps makes the diagnosis a bit more accurate.
After your tests are completed and the diagnosis done as well, you might want to get a few answers or pointers from the doctor. This is the time to ask him a few questions so you can start to make the necessary changes to have a better quality of life.
- What lifestyle changes should I make?
- Will I ever get better?
- Do the medications prescribed have side effects?
- What precautions should I take?
- What can I do to cope as the disease progresses?
- How often will I be monitored?
- How long have I got to live?
Once the tests are done and if they come out positive, the doctor’s diagnosis will tell you how mild or severe your COPD is. The diagnosis after the spirometry test will be mild, moderate or severe depending on how strong or weak your lungs are. This will be measured by the airflow obstruction and it is called the FEV1/FVC ratio – which indicates how much air you can blow out in a second and this is divided by the amount of air in one breath. People with COPD will be classified by this test and over 80% will be said to be mild, 50% to 79% will be moderate and anything less than that will be severe to very severe. This, together with the results of the other tests will help the doctor give you a fairly clear picture of what stage your COPD is in. He will also give you advice on what you need to do to ensure that the downward spiral is slowed down if not stopped.