You are getting older. More often than not, you notice you have difficulty breathing. There are higher chances you are suffering from Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease or COPD. Its common among people who have smoked heavily for decades. Ideally, when you breathe, air travels down from your nose and mouth down through your airways to your lungs. COPD blocks your airways, and damages your lung tissues. You will experience emphysema and chronic bronchitis; conditions which affect slightly different parts of the lungs. As a result, you will suffer from cough, increased phlegm, and breathlessness.
Tobacco smoke is primarily responsible for COPD. This implies that this disease is largely preventable by not smoking. Other culprits however include air pollution and chemical fumes from the environment and workplace. This malady is still incurable. The good news, you can still be able to live a quality life if learn the ways to deal with the symptoms. Quitting smoking is the very first step, and significant step you can take to guard your health from deteriorating further. Its vital that you stop this habit even after diagnosis. The best time to start caring for your body and health is now.
Quite often, victims of COPD avoid doing lots of exercise with the excuse having trouble breathing and fatigue which in turn hurts their lungs and heart. Keeping these organs at rest by living a sedentary lifestyle is not a wise course to take. Lack of exercise weakens your muscles and overtime, you will become less physically able. On the contrary, regular exercise enables your body to do more work on less oxygen. It requires patience though for you to become fit. There is a lot you will benefit if you keep active. Because exercise should be fun, you should opt for those that you not only like but can also do frequently. Walking is a perfect choice. Walk as far as you possibly can as long as you feel too distressed. Go an extra mile as your body and endurance gets better.
Consult your doctor before starting on any exercise regimen. Taking a puff of your reliever inhaler before the activity can be of great help. Being frequently breathless can rob you of your appetite, let alone making effort to cook good food. You cannot afford to compromise your diet. In fact you should consider it as part of the treatment. It is in your diet that you will derive the energy required by your body to breathe.
Are you overweight? You need to shed off the surplus weight to reduce the load on your lungs and muscles. Find out from your doctor what foods you need to eat. Ask for help and let the people in your social circle know which activities you need help with and those you can handle on your own. You need lots of energy to do your everyday activities. As such you will overly be consumed into yourself. Watch out for this, but rather keep in touch with friends, and keep at your usual interests.