Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease can be treated but it cannot be cured. The treatment is essentially to slow down the progression of the disease and to contain the symptoms so the person feels some degree of relief. It is mainly to help the quality of life get a bit better for the rest of the person’s life.
At the risk of being boringly repetitive, the first thing that the person has to do is to stop smoking. Not tomorrow, not soon, but right now. The cause of COPD is basically smoking and if the person continues, it would just mean hastening his journey to the grave. This is what COPD patients need to be told bluntly and in no uncertain terms as well as the fact that not only is the disease fatal, it could mean a lot of suffering as well. It’s never easy to give up smoking or in fact any kind of addiction but the fear of a painful death could be one way to scare the patient into quitting. Not just smoking but passive smoking as well. For a COPD sufferer, even the slightest bit of smoke can cause a lot of problems and accelerate the symptoms.
Doctors will usually prescribe both inhalers and antibiotics to treat the symptoms of COPD. The inhalers prescribed could be bronchodilators or steroids. Bronchodilators make the muscles in the bronchial tubes more relaxed which means you can breathe easier. For many COPD patients, a bronchodilator helps to relive the cough and the shortness of breath. There are two kinds of bronchodilators – a short-acting one and a long-acting one. While the short acting one, as the name suggests, is for immediate relief and is used just before an activity that needs you to exert a bit, the long acting one is usually used for relief right through the day. If the doctor feels that you are suffering from not just constricted airways but inflammation as well, he would prescribe inhaled steroids which can act on the inflammation, make it better and help you breathe easier. However, steroids come with their own problems and side effects so they are only used if the patient really needs relief. Steroids could cause high BP and could aggravate diabetes, heart complaints and make bones weak. If you succumb to infections likes influenza or pneumonia, the doctor will probably prescribe antibiotics to control the infection. With the lungs being so weak with COPD, it will only get worse if there are other infections to cope with as well. These will be prescribed only if it is thought necessary.
In some cases, a lung transplant may be necessary because of the terrible condition of the lungs. This is usually done when people have a really bad case of emphysema. The problem is, there is a long waiting list for donated lungs as for any other organs so you might not be able to wait that long. Then, surgery might be recommended to remove the damaged bits of tissue in the lungs. This may provide the person with some temporary respite to breathe easier but neither procedure is really an answer because it cannot cure the problem.
Your doctor may also ask you to join a pulmonary rehab program where you can get a lot of information, interact with others who suffer from COPD, get educated about the disease and the new techniques you can use to get some relief, get some exercise training where you can do a bit of exercise without overtaxing yourself and get some counseling if you would like that. Overall, this is the way to cope with COPD and to make the best you can of the days you have left. These programs have trained professionals who will prescribe a tailor made program just for you depending on the stage that your COPD is in.
The other therapy that is often prescribed is oxygen therapy because COPD patients rarely have enough oxygen levels in their blood. Many of these oxygen canisters are portable and can be carried around with you when you are traveling. This makes it so much easier for you because you don’t need to be homebound and you don’t need to be scared of getting too breathless when you are away from home. Oxygen could mean you can exercise more, work if you need to and think more clearly. It’s a great way to make your life with COPD better.
Treatments could differ depending on the severity of the COPD that you are suffering from and each treatment is given anything from a month to three or four months to see if there is any improvement. There are different treatments for COPD that is stable, for COPD with exacerbations and for COPD that is at the latter stage. Sometimes, you will have to develop a combination treatment plan because COPD that is stable could have flare-ups at times that could involve worsening symptoms and exacerbations. The main aim of the doctors will be to manage the disease as much as they can so that they can minimize the symptoms and extend the patient’s life.