Connect with others living with health conditions
Hello Julie1960 Happy you're here I also have COPD Just wondering when it comes to your medication do you just not use it by choice or in my case in the beginning it wasn't part of my routine
Hi, Julie!! Welcome to Ex . I always encourage those with COPD to take their meds as prescribed...it does a body good.
Hello Julie1960 and Happy Monday...what does your Doctor say about you not taking your COPD meds? I thought the meds were to help the disease more bearable...? Colleen 406 DOF
I always try to use what is prescribed, I skip some to. I guess we should keep taking it, we want to live with COPD not let it run our lives.
Well, here's my take. I have COPD so it comes from a patient, not a medical doctor.
Meds for COPD (usually inhaled powders... is that what you have?) will not cure COPD. They help open up your airways so that you can go about your activities of daily living more easily and with less shortness of breath. So it's your choice & should be discussed with your physician. If you're finding your activities limited because of shortness of breath, then by all means you should take your meds on a regular basis, IMO. If not... then of course it is up to you.
As long as you understand the spiral that happens with COPD and (in)activity. First it starts with "well I can't do that so easily, I get short of breath, so I won't do it" (for example, climbing stairs)... which makes it more difficult to do the next harder thing (for example, walking around the block) so "I can't do that easily, so I won't." It becomes an ever-increasing spiral and I see it as "circling the drain" which it is, activity-wise and life-wise. Pretty soon you're sitting there and can't do anything without shortness of breath. I learned all this from experience and in Pulmonary Rehab, I'm not talking off the top of my head.
Learning you have, and learning to live with, COPD, is an adjustment. Take your time. It isn't going away. The progression can be slowed (i.e. quitting smoking, first and foremost) and it can be lived with comfortably. The meds are actually pretty non-intrusive once you get on the program.
Forget then don't but gonna start
Julie I was like that Just took me a little bit to make it part of my routine. Glad your here
Hi Julie, I have COPD as well, newly diagnosed? Pretty scary isn’t it? I was in October and quit smoking the next day...figured I can’t fix it but I can slow it down at least...blessings
Hello Julie and welcome