COPD
According to the CDC, more than 16 million Americans live with COPD. It refers to a group of diseases that cause airflow problems. “The air goes in OK, but breathing out is the difficulty so there’s air trapping which causes shortness of breath, and the oxygen levels will be very low .” Lee Health Nurse Mini Mathew said the number one cause of COPD is tobacco smoking. “Our lungs don’t like or don’t need any smoke. Any kind of smoke even vaping.”
Once you have COPD, you have it for life; however, the severity can be lessened with healthy lifestyle changes. “The damage happening to the long is irreversible, but what happens with quitting smoking is you can prevent more damage than lung tissue,” said Matthew.
If COPD is left untreated, “Eventually, the heart nerves will get damaged and it can eventually cause heart arrhythmia, or irregular beats,” said Matthew. “The low oxygen level with COPD can cause high blood pressure in the blood vessels in the lungs, which can eventually cause right heart failure.”
Symptoms include trouble breathing, frequent coughing, and excess phlegm. Treatment is available. “There is a program called pulmonary rehab, for some patients that is continuous exercise, and it’s a program they can do as an outpatient and most of the time the insurance company pays for it,” said Matthew. You can learn more about our COPD management program by searching for it on leehealth.org.
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Lee Health in Fort Myers, FL is the largest network of health care facilities in Southwest Florida and is highly respected for its expertise, innovation and quality of care. For more than 100 years, we’ve been providing our community with personalized preventative health services and primary care to highly specialized care services and robotic assisted surgeries. Lee Health - Caring People. Inspiring Care.
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