Article written by Kevin Trippe, ARNP, Hospitalist at Snoqualmie Valley Health.

November is COPD Awareness Month, a time dedicated to shedding light on Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, a progressive lung condition that affects millions of people worldwide.

General Information

COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease) is a lung disease that makes it hard to breathe. In people with COPD, the airways (the branching tubes that carry air within the lungs) become narrow and can be clogged with mucus. The air sacs can also become damaged. This makes people feel out of breath and tired. Patients with COPD may feel wheezy or have a chronic cough as well.

COPD can be a serious illness. Although there is no current cure, treatments are available to help control symptoms and enhance well-being. Patients with COPD can get good control over their symptoms with treatment.

You might have heard COPD called “chronic bronchitis” or “emphysema.” These are types of COPD.

At first, COPD often causes no symptoms. As it gets worse it can make you:

• Feel short of breath, especially when you are moving around
• Wheeze (make a whistling or squeaking noise as you breathe)
• Cough and spit up sputum (mucus)

It is important to get your COPD diagnosed and treated as untreated COPD can lead to high risk of lung infections, heart problems and long-term hospitalization.

Risk Factors

The number one risk factor for COPD is smoking.

Other exposures to smoke or damaging chemicals can also lead to COPD even in patients who never smoked.

Rarely COPD is due to family genetics.

Diagnosis

Your doctor can give you a test called “spirometry” to check for COPD. These are also called pulmonary function tests. During spirometry, you take a deep breath and then blow out as fast and hard as you can into a tube. A machine connected to the tube measures how much air you can blow out of your lungs and how fast you can blow.

If the results of your spirometry are not normal, you will get a medicine in an inhaler to see if your breathing gets better. Then after a few minutes, you will repeat the spirometry. This will help the doctor find out if your problem is caused by COPD or another lung problem, such as asthma. People with asthma usually get normal results after they use an inhaler. People with COPD often do not.

Your doctor might order other tests, too. These can check to see if other problems besides COPD might be causing your symptoms. They can also look for some of the problems that COPD can lead to.

Treatment:

Avoid smoking – Quitting smoking is the most important thing that you can do for your health. This is true no matter how long you have smoked or how much you smoke. If you are having trouble quitting, your doctor can help you. There are many new medications to help patients quit smoking.

Medicines – There are a lot of medicines to treat COPD. Most people use inhalers that help open up their airways or decrease swelling in the airways. Often people need more than 1 inhaler at a time. You might need to take a steroid medicine in a pill for a “flare.” A flare is when symptoms suddenly, but temporarily, get worse. Frequent “flares” are a sign that your medications need to be adjusted.

Avoid triggers – If things like fumes, pollution, or dust make your breathing worse, try to avoid them if possible.

Lower your risk of infection – Certain infections can be very hard on your lungs and can cause COPD symptoms to flare up. You can lower your risk by getting certain vaccines. These include vaccines to protect against the flu, pneumonia, and coronavirus disease 2019 (“COVID-19”). In addition, wash your hands often and stay away from people who are sick.

Citation: UpToDate: “Patient education: COPD (The basics))”