Fall injuries aren't something that most people think much about on a day-to-day basis, let alone take specific measures to avoid. But as people who have experienced a serious fall injury can attest to, falling is a very serious threat that many adults just can't afford to ignore.

Your risk of falling inevitably increases as you age, but your risk may be even higher if you have COPD. That's because, while COPD doesn't cause falls directly, it does cause a variety of physical effects that can significantly increase your risk of having a fall.

Studies show that people with COPD are both more likely to experience accidental falls and more likely to get severely injured from falling compared to similarly-aged adults without COPD. And this is no minor risk; according to the CDC, falls are the leading cause of injury-related and accidental death in adults over the age of 65.

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Fortunately, many—if not most—falls are avoidable, and there are plenty of ways to reduce your risk of falling if you have COPD. And since the place that you're most likely to experience a fall is at home, thoroughly fall-proofing your house is one of the best things you can do to prevent accidental falls.

That's why we created this guide to explain everything you need to know to get started fall-proofing your home for COPD. In it, you'll learn how to identify common fall hazards and make a variety of practical safety improvements to fall-prone areas in your home.

We'll also take a closer look at the link between COPD and falling to help you better understand the magnitude of the risk. You'll learn about how COPD exacerbates fall risk factors, how it affects recovery from fall injuries, and how people with COPD can benefit from fall-proofing in a variety of different ways.

Our goal is to show you that fall-proofing is worth the effort and provide you with practical fall-proofing knowledge that you can put to use in your home right away. We hope that the strategies, tips, and resources in this guide will inspire you and empower you to make your home a safer environment for living with COPD.

COPD & Falling: What's the Risk?

Every year, more than one quarter of adults over the age of 65 have a fall. Among people with COPD, the rate is significantly higher: studies show that COPD patients are 55% more likely than non-COPD patients to have a history of falling, and that they have about 85% more falls, on average, compared to people without COPD.

While the association between COPD and falling might seem strange at first, it makes sense if you consider the multitude of ways that COPD can affect your balance and mobility. For example, COPD symptoms (like shortness of breath) can make you feel lightheaded and unsteady, while COPD-related health complications (like osteoporosis) can increase your risk of breaking a bone if you fall.

COPD is also associated with numerous well-known fall risk factors (PDF link), including muscle weakness, dizziness, lightheadedness, and fatigue. It's also associated with an increased risk of getting injured from falling, and a more difficult time recovering from injuries caused by falls

In the following sections, we're going to take a closer look at these and other COPD-related fall risk factors to better understand the relationship between falling and COPD. We'll also discuss how COPD impacts recovery, and why fall injuries tend to be more serious in people with COPD.

How does COPD make you more susceptible to falling?

It might seem surprising that COPD, as a respiratory condition, could affect your risk of falling. However, COPD is a complex disease that has a wide variety of effects on the body, many of which can affect your balance and susceptibility to falls.

If you or someone you love has COPD, understanding these effects can give you a better idea of what kinds of fall hazards you need to look out for. It can also help you focus your fall-prevention strategy on the things that are most likely to pose a danger to people with COPD.

COPD Symptoms

COPD symptoms can make you feel dizzy, lightheaded, or even drowsy at times, which can easily throw off your balance and make you more likely to fall. This could happen during a bout of coughing or breathlessness for example, or when you're feeling fatigued.

COPD Medications

Certain COPD medications can also make you dizzy or drowsy, which increases your risk of accidents, including falls. The risk might be even higher if you take other medications (e.g blood pressure medications) or take multiple medications (including over-the-counter medications) that interact with one another or have compounding side-effects.

Other Health Complications Caused by COPD

COPD can cause a variety of other health problems that can increase your risk of falling, usually because they affect your ability to balance or reduce your physical strength. For example, chronic hypoxemia (low blood oxygen levels) is a common COPD complication that can cause you to frequently feel lightheaded and unsteady on your feet.

COPD also increases your risk for a variety of cardiovascular problems (such as high blood pressure and right-sided heart failure) that can lower your blood oxygen levels and make you feel dizzy as well. The worst thing about dizziness from low oxygen levels is that it tends to strike during physical activities (e.g. walking, standing up, and climbing stairs), which is when you need your balance the most.

Having COPD can also interfere with your ability to do activities that help you maintain muscle strength and balance, including exercise, eating, and getting enough sleep. Many people with COPD also suffer from Vitamin D deficiency, which is another known risk factor for falls.

What's more, some research suggests that having COPD can reduce balance and stability irrespective of the factors mentioned above. While researchers are still unsure why that is, some believe it could be related to a kind of nerve damage (peripheral neuropathy) that is relatively common in people with COPD.

How Does COPD Increase Your Risk of Injury (from Falling)?

In addition to increasing your chances of falling, COPD also increases your chances of getting seriously injured when you fall. The main reasons for this are muscle weakness and osteoporosis, both of which are quite common in people with COPD.

Muscle Weakness

COPD makes it difficult to exercise and stay active, which (in addition to other factors, like inflammation and malnutrition) often leads to physical decline. One of the biggest contributors to this decline is the loss of muscle mass and resulting muscle weakness, which is a major risk factor for falls.

Muscle strength is not only important for maintaining balance, but also for being able to “catch yourself” and avoid getting hurt when you fall. This can cause you to fall harder or land in a way that causes you to get injured; e.g. on top of a hard object or on a fragile bone or limb.

Osteoporosis

People with COPD also tend to have risk factors that make them more prone to osteoporosis; these risk factors include things like older age, poor nutrition, lack of exercise, and chronic inflammation (a common symptom of COPD). Some medications used to treat COPD symptoms—particularly steroid medications, including steroid inhalers—can also increase the risk of bone density loss and osteoporosis over time.

Osteoporosis weakens your bones and makes them more brittle, which can cause them to break from even little accidents like minor bumps and falls. One study found that COPD patients were 50% more likely to have osteoporosis than people without COPD and were 1.6 times as likely to have suffered a major osteoporosis-related bone fracture.

Unfortunately, people with very severe COPD symptoms often have trouble eating and exercising enough to keep their bones and bodies strong. Because of this, those with advanced COPD tend to have a higher risk for osteoporosis, muscle weakness, and getting severely injured from a fall compared to those with milder COPD symptoms.

To learn more about COPD and osteoporosis, check out our guide on that topic here.

How COPD Can Make Recovery Harder After a Fall

Having a chronic health condition like COPD can make recovering from injuries harder, even injuries that are completely unrelated to COPD. The opposite is true as well: unrelated injuries can make your COPD worse by making it harder to to take care of yourself and manage your COPD.

A fall injury that makes it difficult to walk or requires hospitalization, for example, could prevent you from exercising for weeks or even months at a time. In the time it takes to recover, you could lose much of your strength and endurance as well as the many other health benefits you get from regular exercise.

This alone can have far-reaching health consequences, including worsened COPD symptoms and an increased risk of developing other health problems like heart disease. Long periods of inactivity can also increase your risk of falling in the future due to decreased muscle strength, balance, and increased COPD symptoms like breathlessness and fatigue.

What's more, if you have a fall that requires you to be hospitalized, having COPD could complicate your treatment. It could make certain procedures like surgery more risky, for example, or limit the number of medications that doctors can safely prescribe you in addition to the medications you're already taking for COPD.

Being hospitalized can also be dangerous in and of itself because it can increase your risk of getting sick from certain types of infections (e.g. hospital-acquired pneumonia) that can be especially deadly for people with COPD. Unfortunately, because COPD weakens the lung's defenses against infection, COPD patients are particularly vulnerable to respiratory infections both in general and during prolonged hospital stays.

As you can see, falls can result in more than just a single injury; they can set off a chain of consequences that can affect your strength, your mobility, and your ability to manage your COPD long term. That's why avoiding accidental falls is vital for maintaining your physical independence and maintaining a good quality of life as you age.

The Benefits of Fall-Proofing: Why It's Worth the Hassle

Fall-proofing can do more than just prevent falls and fall injuries; it can make your home a more comfortable—and more accessible—place to live with COPD. It can help you conserve energy, stay independent, and even build up the confidence to do a wider range of activities around your home.

Now that you better understand how COPD can make you vulnerable to falling, you can hopefully see why fall prevention for COPD patients is such a serious concern. Now, let's take a look at what you can gain from fall-proofing, and why it's more than worth the time and effort it takes to fall-proof your home.

Reduced Risk of Injury and Hospitalization from Falls

It goes without saying that the main point of fall-proofing is to reduce the risk that you (or someone else in your household) will fall and get injured in your home. However, we do want to emphasize why preventing falls is so important by showing you how bad even a “minor” fall can be.

First, it's important to know that serious fall injuries among older adults are very common. CDC research shows that one-fifth of falls cause serious injury, and that 3 million older adults are admitted to the emergency room for fall injuries every year.

Second, you should know that even ground-level falls (falls from standing height or lower) can result in a wide range of serious injuries, including broken bones and head injuries. These injuries can require long recovery periods, long hospital stays, and sometimes even serious medical procedures like surgery before they can fully heal.

Unfortunately, recovering from fall injuries is often especially difficult—and particularly lengthy—for older adults and people with chronic diseases like COPD. Injuries in older adults are also more likely to result in permanent health problems, including muscle weakness, loss of physical mobility, and chronic pain.

The lasting effects from fall injuries can lead to further physical decline can make it difficult—or impossible—to return to the life you had before. In this way, fall injuries can have huge, long-term effects on your quality of life even long after they heal.

It's also important to acknowledge that some people never make it out of the hospital or home recovery because they die of their injuries or complications during recovery. In fact, studies show that deaths from falls in adults over the age of 65 have steadily increased in recent years.

Increased Confidence At Home

One of the more difficult parts of living with COPD is the gradual decline in physical ability, which can have a huge effect on just about every part of your life. Along with that often comes a sense of fear and vulnerability that can further restrict what kinds of activities you do.

Studies show that a large number of senior adults restrict their activities for fear of falling, and that this can have a significant negative effect on their quality of life. It's often not even a conscious decision; you just slowly start to limit yourself to the areas and activities that feel safest, not realizing what you've given up along the way.

You might be surprised at how much fall-proofing can improve your sense of safety and security at home. It can even boost your sense of confidence in your own abilities and help you feel less limited by COPD.

Increased Comfort & Convenience at Home

Making the effort to fall-proof your home will not only make it safer, but also much more functional and comfortable to use. That's because getting rid of fall hazards makes your home easier to navigate in general, which is a particularly important benefit for people with COPD.

This can make a huge difference during COPD exacerbations or anytime your feeling breathless and fatigued. It can also help reduce the stresses of daily life just a little by making it easier to get around when you're in a hurry or have your hands full.

More Energy and Independence

Fall-proofing can help you adapt your home environment to one that's much better suited to your mobility needs. In this way, fall-proofing can allow you to do more activities independently and generally expand the range of activities that you can do safely in your home.

For example, fall-proofing often involves adding practical tools (like shower chairs and handlebars by the toilet) that make it easier to do regular household tasks. This can allow you to live more independently and do more everyday things around the house on your own.

By making your home more accessible, fall-proofing can also help you conserve energy, which is often in short supply for people with COPD. Then, you can use that saved energy on other things, allowing you to do more and accomplish more throughout the day.

How to Fall-Proof Your Home For COPD

Now that we've covered the basics of why fall-proofing is important, it's time to learn exactly how to fall-proof your home for COPD. In the following sections, we'll go through all the major steps of fall-proofing, showing you plenty of practical strategies you can use to address a wide range of fall hazards in your own home.

But that's not all; toward the end of this guide, you'll find a curated list of expert resources and thorough fall-proofing checklists you can use. And in the very last section, we'll discuss a variety of other things (besides fall-proofing) that you can do to improve your balance and reduce your risk of falling if you have COPD.

How to Make Your Floors Fall-Proof: It's All About Where You Step

The surfaces you walk on have a major impact on your balance and fall risk, which is why the majority of fall-prevention strategies focus on floors. That includes the floors themselves as well as the obstacles that end up on them, such as furniture, doorway thresholds, power cords, and rugs.

Unfortunately, no matter what kinds of floors you have or how clean you keep them, walking on them will always carry some risk. However, you can reduce those risks substantially by eliminating trip hazards and making simple—yet effective—safety improvements to your floors.

Beware of Rugs

When you think about floor fall hazards, rugs probably aren't the first things that come to mind. But even though they might seem harmless, rugs are the most common—and possibly most dangerous—trip hazards in the home.

Studies show that rugs cause a significant number of fall injuries. In the US alone, nearly 17,400 adults over the age of 65 have to be treated for fall injuries associated with rugs every year.

However, not all rugs are created equal; some rugs are much more likely to cause falls than others, and—in some situations—certain types of rugs can actually help prevent falls. The difference comes down to a few different factors: what kind of rug you're using, where you place it, and what you're using it for.

Throw rugs, for example, are particularly easy to trip on, especially when their edges get curled up, folded, or frayed. Additionally, most throw rugs are not (or cannot be) secured in place properly, meaning they can easily shift, slip, and bunch up under your feet.

On the other hand, non-slip rugs can be safe to use on hard flooring, as long as they're properly designed and they firmly stay in place. In fact, non-slip rugs can actually help you avoid slipping on slick patches on floors that tend to get wet, like your entryway, bathroom, or in front of the kitchen sink.

Unfortunately, even non-slip rugs can be a trip hazard, especially if they're bulky, damaged, or poorly placed. That's why it's important to only use rugs where they're really needed, and to carefully consider whether a particular rug's potential safety benefits are worth its potential risks.

One thing that all fall-prevention experts agree on, however, is that getting rid of loose, decorative throw rugs should be a first priority when fall-proofing any home. When it comes to non-slip rugs, however, evidence is mixed, though many experts agree that non-slip rugs can be beneficial when used cautiously and sparingly on potentially-slippery floors.

Here are some basic rules and criteria for using non-slip rugs safely in your home:

• Only use non-slip rugs with rubber backing that firmly grips the floor.
• Choose thinner rugs over bulky ones; it's more of a trip hazard the farther it sticks up from the floor.
• Ideally, you should use non-slip rugs with tapered edges that sit flush (or as flush as possible) with the floor.
• Only use non-slip rugs on hard floor surfaces where they can get an adequate grip and stay in place (e.g. tile, hardwood, acrylic, smooth concrete, etc.)
• Consider placing non-slip rugs on hard-floored areas near places that get wet, which can include your entryway, bathrooms, any anywhere else that's near a water source like a shower, washer, or sink.
• Make sure the floor is completely dry before placing a rug; any moisture trapped underneath the rug (e.g. from water splashes or mopping) could cause the rug to slip.

Keep Up With Floor Maintenance & Repairs

Keeping your carpet and other flooring in good repair should always be a top home maintenance priority, especially for people with mobility-limiting conditions like COPD. Unfortunately, damaged flooring is one of those inconvenient problems that far too often get ignored.

People often put off floor repairs due to the expense and/or effort it takes to complete them, not realizing how big of a risk they are taking. In reality, floor damage

Flexible spending accounts (or FSA's) are a great tool to save money on healthcare, especially if you or someone in your family suffers from a chronic medical condition. If you use oxygen therapy, a flexible spending account can be a smart way to cover special equipment and out-of-pocket costs.

Unfortunately, many people who use oxygen don't take full advantage of their FSA. You can use your FSA to buy all kinds of oxygen therapy supplies, but many people don't realize this or don't think beyond the basics.

The truth is, you can use your FSA to cover just about any oxygen supplies and equipment that your insurance won't cover. That includes small things—like softer tubing or your preferred brand of nasal cannula—and large things—like a brand new portable oxygen concentrator.

But if you have an FSA, you've probably experienced the end-of-year anxiety that comes before your plan expires. This time of year often signals a mad rush to use up FSA money before the funds are lost forever.

When this time comes, too many people spend their extra funds on the first, most convenient things that come to mind. While this isn't always a bad thing, many people are simply not aware of all their options and how they can put that money to best use.

Fortunately, there is a huge number of things you can purchase with your FSA, and it's easy to use up extra funds if you know what your options are. In fact, extra FSA money at the end of the year provides the perfect opportunity to invest in a portable oxygen concentrator or other oxygen supplies you've been wanting to buy.

In this post, we're going to explain how your FSA works and how you can make the most out of your funds before they expire. We'll explain what kinds of purchases are eligible, help you understand FSA restrictions, and give you some practical ideas of what to spend your extra FSA funds on.

Using oxygen isn't always easy, and it's important to utilize all of the options you have to improve the comfort and convenience of oxygen therapy. To learn more, continue reading this article to find out how you can use your FSA to fund a new oxygen concentrator for yourself or a loved one this year.

Here's a quick overview of the information we'll cover in this guide:

• What an FSA is and how it works
• How to understand FSA plan years and when funds expire
• Limitations on how you can spend your FSA
• How to use up your FSA funds before they expire
• What kinds of oxygen supplies are eligible for FSA funds
• How to buy a portable oxygen concentrator with FSA funds
• What kinds of mobility aids qualify for FSA funds
• How and when you can use your FSA funds on someone in your family

How Does an FSA Work?

If you're already very familiar with what an FSA is and what it does, then feel free to skip ahead to the next section. This section is for those of you who aren't quite sure how an FSA works.

This section may also be helpful if you're a bit fuzzy on the details or need a quick refresher on what kinds of expenses you can pay for with your FSA.

What is an FSA?

An FSA, or Flexible Spending Account, is a type of spending account specifically for health and medical expenses. You can only get an FSA through an employer, and you put money in the account by taking it directly out of your earnings.

However, there are limits on what you can use your FSA funds for; in general, you can only use them to pay for out-of-pocket healthcare costs for yourself, your spouse, and your dependents. You also have to use up the money in your FSA by the end of every year, otherwise you lose the unspent amount.

The only way to put money into your FSA account is to get it deducted automatically from your paychecks. In general, you have to decide on an amount to contribute for the whole year and you can't change it until the new plan year starts.

The greatest benefit of having an FSA is that whatever money you put into it is income tax exempt. That means that you get to keep the full amount, before taxes, of any earnings you put in your FSA account.

For example, let's assume your income tax rate is about 30%, and you decide to contribute $300 from your paycheck to your FSA. Normally, you would have to pay $90 in taxes on that $300; however, since you decided to contribute that money to your FSA, you don't pay any income taxes and get to keep the full $300.

Because of this, there is always a limit to how much money you can contribute to your FSA account every year. The law limits each person to a maximum of 2,650 yearly, but your employer might limit your contribution to a different amount.

Many people try to max out their FSA every year to take full advantage of its tax saving benefits. Since you can use your FSA to cover such a wide range of healthcare expenses, it's generally not very difficult to find a way to use up extra funds.

An FSA is a great way to set money aside for future medical expenses like medications, operations, and medical equipment that your insurance doesn't cover. This can be especially useful for seniors, families with children, people with chronic diseases, and anyone who faces large or unpredictable healthcare costs.

When you need to spend the money in your FSA account on a medical expense, there are two main ways you can do that. First, you can pay the amount yourself and then submit a claim to get reimbursed from your FSA, or you can use a FlexCard to pay expenses directly from your account.

Here is a quick overview of some of the key features and benefits of using an FSA:

• You can contribute whatever amount you'd like every month, up to a maximum of $2,650 per year.
• The amount you contribute to your FSA gets taken directly from your paycheck.
• Any income you contribute to your FSA is income tax exempt.
• Your employer may choose to match the amount you contribute to your FSA up to a certain amount.

Now that we've covered what an FSA is, let's take a closer look at how it works. In order to use your FSA legally and get the most out of your account, it's vital to understand how FSA funds expire and what kinds of expenses you are allowed to pay for with your FSA.

The Funds in Your FSA Expire Every Year

FSA accounts work on a year-long cycle. At the beginning of every plan year, your accounts starts at $0, and any money you put in the account throughout the year has to be spent before the plan year ends.

At the beginning of the next year, your account gets reset to zero again, and any funds leftover from the previous year get forfeited. That's why it's very important to use all of the money in your account before it expires.

While the start and end of most FSA plan years usually align with the calendar year, this is not always the case. To avoid losing your hard-earned funds, make sure you know the exact date that your FSA plan ends and don't lose track of it throughout the year.

If You Don't Use It, You Will Probably Lose It

Even if you have money left over in your FSA account, you will lose it forever after the start of the new plan year. Because of this, many people spend December looking for useful ways to spend away the rest of the money in their accounts.

There are some exceptions, however; some FSA plans give you a month or two grace period to use unspent funds after the end of your plan year. Alternatively, the Affordable Care Act allows employers who don't offer a grace period to allow employees to roll over up to $500 in unspent funds from the previous year.

How your FSA works depends on the particular plan offered by your employer. Regardless, under most plans you stand to lose a significant amount of your balance if you don't use it up by the end of your plan year.

Fortunately, there are plenty of ways to use up all your hard-earned FSA funds before they expire. Even if the deadline is close, there's nothing to stop you from going on a last-minute healthcare shopping spree.

There are Strict Limitations on How You Can Spend Your FSA

FSA funds can only be used to pay for qualified medical expenses, which the IRS defines as “costs of the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease, and the costs for treatments affecting any part or function of the body.” However, when it comes to the specifics of what you can and cannot pay for using FSA funds, the rules can be somewhat vague.

The IRS also specifies that the healthcare expense must also be used “primarily to alleviate or prevent a physical disability or illness.” However, expenses related to general health, such as vitamins and health foods, are not considered qualified medical expenses.

We'll go into greater detail on what kinds of supplies and equipment do and don't count as qualified FSA expenses in this next section. In the following sections, we'll lay out exactly what kinds of oxygen supplies, oxygen equipment, and other helpful supplies you can purchase with your FSA.

What You CAN Purchase with FSA Funds

Here is a list of some general healthcare expenses that are qualified for FSA funds:

• Medical care that you receive from any legal medical practitioner, including physicians, surgeons, dentists, and other specialists.
• Medical equipment, medical supplies, and diagnostic devices needed for medical purposes (e.g. first aid supplies, oxygen therapy supplies, and blood sugar test kits)
• Prescription medications
• The cost of your health insurance premium (but not dental insurance)
• Transportation costs you incur traveling to and from medical care
• Long-term care services (and, in some cases, some of the costs of long-term care insurance)
• Over-the-counter medications, but only if you have a doctor's prescription (excluding insulin)

Here is a list of some common products that qualify as medical equipment and supplies:

• Thermometers
• Antiseptic
• Bandages
• First aid kits
• Blood pressure monitors
• Defibrillators
• Sunscreen
• Condoms
• Prenatal vitamins
• Adaptive mobility aids (e.g. shower chairs)
• Oxygen equipment and maintenance products

What You May NOT Purchase with FSA Funds

Here is a list of some general healthcare expenses that are NOT qualified for FSA funds:

• Any “general health” items that are not needed to treat or prevent a specific illness, disease, or medical condition
• Toothbrushes and over-the-counter dental products
• Over-the-counter medications without a prescription
• Fitness trackers and pedometers
• Gym memberships and exercise equipment
• CBD products and medical marijuana
• Cosmetic procedures
• Dental insurance premiums
• Feminine hygiene products
• Diapers
• Hair loss products
• Medicare alternative insurance premiums
• Medicare part B insurance

Here are a couple more great resources for figuring out what specific things you can and cannot buy with FSA funds:

• The FSA Store
• General list of eligible and non-eligible items from Wageworks

You CAN Buy Oxygen Equipment and Supplies with FSA Funds

Fortunately for people who use oxygen, you can use FSA funds to pay for medical equipment and supplies that are necessary for oxygen therapy. That includes the cost of oxygen and oxygen equipment used to “relieve breathing problems caused by a medical condition.”

In the following sections, we'll go into more detail about exactly what kinds of oxygen supplies and equipment count as qualified health expenses. We'll also show you how you can use your FSA to pay for pricier equipment that may be difficult to fund otherwise, such as a portable oxygen concentrator.

How to Use Up Your FSA Funds Before They Expire

You can get the most out of your FSA by thinking outside the box and considering all your different spending options. That's why it's important to understand your FSA's full potential, and that it can be used to cover much more than basic costs like co-pays and prescriptions.

If you use supplemental oxygen, you can use your FSA pay for all kinds of practical supplies to make your daily life easier. For example, you can use FSA funds to purchase a shower chair for your home or get that high-flow nasal cannula you've always wanted to try.

There is a wide variety of FSA-qualified oxygen therapy equipment, adaptive mobility aids, and other supplies you can choose from. You can use your FSA to pay for small equipment expenses and for more expensive devices like portable oxygen concentrators.

In the following sections, we're going to give you some ideas for how to use FSA funds on oxygen and mobility supplies that will actually make a difference in your life. From portable oxygen concentrators to mobility aids to luxury oxygen equipment, we'll show you a variety of practical items that can improve your quality of life.

Since the money in your FSA account disappears at the end of the year, you should think about how to use up the entire balance before that date comes. Luckily, there is a plethora of worthwhile things you can purchase with your FSA, many of which you might not have thought about before on your own.

You Can Buy a Portable Oxygen Concentrator

If you've ever considered buying a new or used portable oxygen concentrator but worried about the price, you can always fund the purchase through your FSA. It's a great way to use up extra FSA funds, and it's one of the most worthwhile investments that someone who uses supplemental oxygen can make.

A portable oxygen concentrator allows you to take oxygen with you anywhere you go, without having to handle any bulky equipment. They are some of the lightest, safest, and most hassle-free oxygen sources available, and having one can be life-changing in the best possible way.

A portable oxygen concentrator allows you to move freely without being tethered to a stationary oxygen concentrator or heavy oxygen tank. This allows you to take back some of the freedom you lose when you have to use supplemental oxygen.

Buying a portable oxygen concentrator is a long-term investment that is also immediately practical; it is something you can utilize both inside and outside your home every day. Portable concentrators are also durable, high-quality pieces of equipment that you can benefit from for many years to come.

There are many different types of oxygen concentrators available in a variety of sizes and with a range of useful features. To learn more about the best portable oxygen concentrators on the market, check out the following links:

• The best portable oxygen concentrators of 2018
• Top 4 continuous flow portable oxygen concentrators
• Top 4 pulse flow portable oxygen concentrators

How to Pay for a Portable Oxygen Concentrator with FSA Funds

Even if you don't have enough money in your FSA to pay the entire price of a portable oxygen concentrator, you can still use it to cover part of the cost. Whether you have $200 or $2,000 in your account, you can put as much of it as you like toward the balance and use another payment method for the rest.

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Here at Life Point Medical, we offer great financing options that can make it even easier to pay for a new or used portable oxygen concentrator with your FSA. You can cover the initial cost with the money in your account right now, and then pay for the rest over time with low monthly payments.

You Can Buy a Variety of Oxygen Equipment and Supplies

If you use oxygen for any reason, you can get the most out of your extra FSA funds by spending them on new oxygen supplies. There is a wide variety of FSA-qualified oxygen equipment and maintenance items that can make oxygen therapy more comfortable.

In general, you can use your FSA to pay for the following oxygen supplies:

• Oxygen concentrators and accessories, including:
• Battery packs and power cords
• Compressors
• Filters
• Oxygen equipment maintenance items, including:
• Cleansing wipes
• Disinfecting and deodorant sprays
• Oxygen delivery supplies, including:
• Nasal cannulae & oxygen masks
• Extension tubing
• Humidifier bottles
• Nebulizer equipment
• Hyperbaric oxygen therapy
• CPAP/BiPAP machines and accessories, including:
• CPAP machines
• CPAP headgear
• CPAP equipment cleaning supplies

Your FSA is also a great way to fund specialty oxygen equipment, which is often pricier than the standard equipment most oxygen suppliers offer. For example, you could use your FSA funds to buy more comfortable nasal cannulae or higher quality tubing supplies.

In general, you can use your FDA to pay for any oxygen therapy supplies that your insurance won't cover. To learn more about the many different types of nasal cannulae, oxygen masks, tubing, and more that you have to choose from, take a look at our guide on making oxygen therapy more comfortable.

There are many different kinds of specialty oxygen supplies you can buy that are designed to make oxygen therapy more comfortable and convenient. For now, here are a few ideas to get you started.

Examples of oxygen supplies that are eligible for FSA funds:

• High-flow nasal cannulae
• Nasal cannulae with soft tubing and comfort features
• A finger pulse oximeter to monitor your blood oxygen saturation
• Comfortable oxygen masks
• Replacement extension tubing
• Humidifier bottles that attach to your oxygen delivery equipment
• Sanitizing sprays and solutions for cleaning your oxygen equipment
• An extra battery for your portable oxygen concentrator
• Replacement filters for your portable or stationary oxygen concentrator
• CPAP/BiPAP masks

You can also purchase a variety of FSA-eligible oxygen and CPAP supplies from our online store. We offer a variety of different CPAP machines and accessories, portable oxygen concentrators, and other oxygen supplies.

You Can Buy a Variety of Qualified Mobility Aids

Living with a chronic condition that requires supplemental oxygen can be difficult. Many people who use oxygen suffer from breathlessness and other physical ailments that limit their mobility and interfere with daily activities.

The good news is that you can use your FSA to pay for many different types of adaptive equipment to make daily living easier. In general, adaptive mobility aids for bathing, dressing, and feeding all qualify for FSA funds.

In some cases, you might need to provide proof that your adaptive equipment is necessary. If proof is required, you will need to have your doctor write a letter of medical necessity (LMN) explaining why you need the equipment for your health and how it will improve your standard of living.

Here is a list of some common mobility aids and equipment you can purchase through your FSA:

• Shower chairs
• Shower grab bars
• Tub seats
• Bath transfers
• Dressing sticks and sock dressing aids
• Long-handled dressing tools (e.g. shoe horn, zipper pull, button hook)
• Grabbers
• Toilet modifications
• Adapted dishware and utensils for eating
• Mobility scooters (with a LMN)

When it comes to sex and gender-related differences in COPD, women certainly seem to get the short end of the stick. Studies show that women not only tend to be more prone to getting COPD, but also suffer from worse symptoms, later diagnoses, and other COPD-related health problems more often than men.

This is a relatively new revelation; back in the day, COPD used to be known as a “man's disease,” and very little was known about COPD in women. Before the early to mid 1900's, the vast majority of tobacco smokers were men, and it was rare for women to smoke or develop smoking-related diseases like COPD.

This isn't true anymore, however, and the trend seems to flipping in the opposite direction as more women than ever have been diagnosed with COPD in recent years. This shift has made it possible for researchers to study COPD in women more extensively, and this research has revealed some significant—and surprising—differences in how women are affected by this disease.

Some of these differences between men and women have biological origins, including differences in lung anatomy and how men's and women's bodies are affected by COPD. On the other hand, some differences originate from within the healthcare system, which (often unwittingly) tends to treat men and women differently during diagnosis, evaluation, and treatment for COPD.

Unfortunately, many of these disparities result in extra risks and disadvantages for women, including later COPD diagnoses, quicker lung function decline, and even a higher risk of death. However, many of these risks can be mitigated with simple preventative measures and increased awareness of these risks among doctors, caretakers, and people with COPD.

In this post, we're going to take a closer look at the scope and the nature of the problems that women with COPD face in regard to their symptoms, their healthcare, and the impact of the disease. Most importantly, we also present dozens of practical strategies—and links to other helpful resources—that women with COPD can use to minimize these extra risks.

All women with COPD deserve to know how the disease might affect them differently and what they can do in response. Knowledge is power, and the more you learn, the more empowered you will be to take control of your health and live your best life possible with COPD.

The Major COPD Risks that Affect Women, and What You Can Do About Them

In the following sections, we'll explain eight major challenges that women with COPD encounter and explore some of the biological and structural reasons for why these issues tend to affect women more than men. You'll also find a plethora of helpful tips throughout this guide for how women can overcome these challenges and get better outcomes for their health.

If you are a woman with COPD, or know someone who is, we hope that this guide will serve as a helpful tool for managing the gender-specific risks that come with the disease. For more information on COPD management, including more information about sex differences among people with COPD, check out our huge collection of helpful guides in our Respiratory Resource Center.

A quick note: We understand that sex and gender are not one and the same, and that COPD differences intersect both gender and sex. For the sake of brevity and simplicity, however, we use these terms interchangeably—or use one term to refer to both concepts at once—at times in this guide.

Women's Lungs Are More Sensitive to Damage from Smoking

How heavily someone smokes throughout their lifetime—a factor that's often measured in “pack years—influences how severe their COPD-related lung damage is later in life. For example, a person with COPD who smoked one pack of cigarettes every day for 10 years (which is the equivalent of 10 pack years of smoking) will likely have more severe lung damage than someone who only smoked half a pack a day for 10 years (equivalent to 5 pack years of smoking).

Unfortunately, research suggests that women's lungs are more vulnerable than men's to the damaging effects of tobacco smoke. This not only makes women more vulnerable to developing COPD, but also causes women to develop more severe COPD than men who have an equivalent number of pack years.

One study, for example, found that women who smoke less than men have nearly the same amount of measurable emphysema (i.e. damaged air sacs in the lungs). This was true even though the men had smoked significantly more—four more cigarettes per day, on average—than the women in the study.

It's important to note that, as a whole, men actually tend to have worse emphysema than women. However, research suggests that this is largely due to the fact that men tend to smoke more heavily; on average, male smokers in the US have a whopping 33% more pack-years than women, with women averaging 15 pack years and men averaging 20.

However, women still sustain a disproportionately large amount of lung damage despite smoking less—and even starting smoking later—than men. While researchers aren't exactly sure why this happens, they believe this phenomenon could be the result of certain biological features in women that predispose their lungs to smoking-related damage.

These biological features include female hormones like estrogen and progesterone, which have been shown to play a role in how the lungs respond to cigarette smoke. Women also tend to have smaller airway spaces than men, which some researchers believe could result in the airways getting a higher dose of toxins when they're exposed to cigarette smoke.

This effect might not be limited to smoking, however; some studies suggest that women's lungs might be more sensitive to other kinds of respiratory hazards, like air pollution, chemical fumes, and second-hand smoke. This is bolstered by the fact that even women who have never smoked before in their lives get COPD at significantly higher rates than men who have never smoked; nearly 80% of nonsmokers with COPD are women.

What Women with COPD Can Do About It:

Quit Smoking

If you are a woman who smokes, quitting smoking is one of the best possible things you can do for your health. There's no way to reverse the damage that's already done, but you can prevent additional damage—and reap a ton of other benefits—if you stop smoking now.

Check out the following guides to learn everything you've ever wanted to know about quitting smoking:

• How to Quit Smoking Part 1: Overcoming Doubts & Finding Resources to Help You Quit
• How to Quit Smoking Part 2: Coping with Nicotine Withdrawal & Choosing a Quit-Smoking Medication
• How to Quit Smoking Part 3: Taking the First Steps & Strategies for Staying Smoke Free

Protect Your Lungs from Potential Hazards

Women should also be extra careful about exposing their lungs to other respiratory hazards, since they seem to be extra vulnerable to their damaging effects. For example, women—like all people—should avoid hazardous occupations (e.g. jobs that expose you to exhaust fumes or dust) and take steps to reduce indoor air pollution in their homes (e.g. avoid using wood-burning stoves, noxious chemicals, and other products that release harmful fumes indoors).

Protecting your lungs from these hazards can also help prevent irritation, inflammation, and flare-ups that make COPD symptoms harder to control. It can also reduce your risk for COPD exacerbations, which can cause additional, permanent lung damage and lung function decline.

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We'll discuss more about how to avoid common respiratory hazards (and link you to several in-depth guides on the topic) in the sections below.

Women Have a Higher Risk of Getting COPD than Men

As we discussed in the previous section, women's lungs tend to be more vulnerable to respiratory irritants than men and tend to sustain more lung damage from each cigarette they smoke. Therefore, it should be no surprise that this causes women to have an overall higher risk for developing COPD than men.

Research suggests that this difference is quite significant; one large systematic review found that women who smoke are fifty percent more likely to get COPD than men who smoke. Other studies show that women tend to be more likely to get COPD from lesser amounts of smoking, and also tend to develop COPD earlier in life.

However, because COPD is such a complicated disease that usually develops years after the exposure that causes it, pinning down the exact reason for gender differences in COPD risk difficult. In addition to biological factors, there are likely a variety of social, lifestyle, and demographic factors at play, such as: gender-related differences in healthcare accessibility, healthcare quality, smoking behaviors, geographical location, and more.

What Women with COPD Can Do About It:

Take Good Care of Your Lungs

The only reliable way to reduce your risk for COPD is to protect your lungs from smoke and other respiratory irritants (like air pollution) throughout your lifetime. The more frequently your lungs are exposed to and inflamed by respiratory hazards, the more you put yourself at risk for lung diseases like COPD.

Because women are more susceptible to COPD, women should be extra careful about what they breathe into their lungs. That means not smoking, or quitting if you do, and doing your best to breathe clean, pollutant-free air as much as possible.

Of course, there's only so much you can do about certain respiratory irritants like outdoor air pollution. But even if you live in a place with low air quality, you can still take steps to reduce how much air pollution breathe (e.g. planning outdoor activities for times when your local air pollution is low).

Here is a list of some of the major respiratory irritants that can increase your risk for COPD:

• Second-hand smoke
• Any kind of smoke or combustion fumes (e.g. smoke from fireplaces, wood-burning stoves, car exhaust, cooking fumes, etc.)
• Radon gas (a common radioactive gas found in homes that can only be detected with a proper radon test)
• Common commercial cleaning and pest-control products
• Many crafting, renovation, and construction materials, including paints, treated lumber, adhesives, solvents, new carpets and flooring, etc.
• Occupational hazards like dust, chemical fumes, and diesel exhaust

It's worth mentioning that, even though any kind of respiratory irritant can be dangerous if you're exposed to it long term, smoking is by far the biggest hazard and the most important one to avoid. Smoking is responsible for more cases of COPD than anything else; a full 85 to 90 percent of all COPD cases are caused by smoking.

Check out the following guides for even more tips about what you can do to avoid respiratory irritants and reduce your risk for COPD:

• How Volatile Organic Compounds Harm Your Lungs, and How to Avoid Them
• How to Cope with Poor Outdoor Air Quality
• How to Protect a Child from Lung Diseases Like COPD

Reduce Sources of Pollution in Your Home

Even though we've already stressed the importance of avoiding respiratory irritants, it's important to discuss indoor air pollution specifically, especially since women tend to be exposed to this type of pollution the most. That's because, even in modern times, women tend to spend more time than men at home doing household tasks that could be hazardous to their lungs.

Cooking and cleaning, for example, two major sources of exposure to respiratory irritants at home. In fact, research shows that non-smoking women who cook more often—and have smokier kitchens when they cook—are more likely to develop COPD.

Fumes from cleaning products, especially chemicals like ammonia and bleach, can also damage your lungs and increase your risk for COPD. Luckily, there are many things you can do to reduce the risks from cooking and cleaning, but you need to do them consistently to keep the air in your home clean.

One of the best things you can do is establish a good ventilation system in your kitchen and any rooms you use chemicals to clean. The goal is to create an air flow that funnels the fumes outdoors, and you can do this with a fume hood (e.g. above your kitchen stove), a ventilation fan (which many bathrooms have pre-installed), or simply by opening up some windows to allow the fumes to escape.

You can also reduce your exposure to chemical irritants by being more selective about what kinds of products you use. Many household cleaning products can be hazardous, so it's a good idea to look at the labels of everything you buy and try to find alternative products that are safer for your lungs.

These are just a few of many possible steps you can take to keep your indoor air as clean as possible. For more tips about how to cook and clean more safely and reduce other sources of air pollution in your home, check out the following guides from our Respiratory Resource Center:

• How to Improve Your Indoor Air Quality for COPD
• How Cleaning Products Can Damage Your Lungs, and What You Can Do to Prevent It
• Your Complete Guide to Choosing an Indoor Air Filter to Improve Your COPD Symptoms
• Spring Cleaning Tips for Healthy Lungs & COPD

Women are Less Likely to Receive a Correct COPD Diagnosis

Unfortunately, women with COPD tend to be disadvantaged in the US healthcare system, and the problem begins at the very first step: women with COPD are less likely to get an accurate COPD diagnosis, more likely to get misdiagnosed with asthma, and tend to get diagnosed later (as in after the disease has progressed further) than men.

One of the main reasons for these discrepancies seems to be doctor bias that affects how they evaluate men vs. women with symptoms that could be a sign of COPD. As a result, women with COPD symptoms are less likely to receive a spirometry test than men, which is likely the primary reason that women are under-diagnosed compared to men.

Spirometry tests are the most powerful tool that doctors have to diagnose COPD, and getting one is vital for an accurate COPD diagnosis. In fact, research shows that the gap between COPD diagnosis rates in men versus women is reduced when doctors have spirometry test data to help them make their diagnoses.

This suggests that, if doctors just did spirometry testing in a more consistent manner, they could significantly reduce or eliminate the diagnosis divide between women and men. However, while this might sound simple, it's not such an easy task; this issue is part of a wider problem of gender bias in healthcare that sees women disadvantaged in a wide range of different ways.

Fortunately, these long-standing issues have received a lot more attention in recent years. As doctors and researchers continue to investigate these gender biases in healthcare, they can develop new strategies for addressing them and reducing the negative effects they have on patients.

What Women with COPD Can Do About It:

Be on the Look Out for COPD Symptoms

Women, and especially women who have risk factors for lung disease, need to be on the lookout for signs of COPD as they age. Never ignore any long-term changes in your respiratory symptoms, especially persistent coughing or shortness of breath.

If you do notice any changes, makes sure to bring them up with your doctor as soon as soon as possible after they occur. The earlier you get diagnosed, the earlier you can get treatment that can improve your quality of life and the long-term outlook for your health.

To learn more about how to recognize the early symptoms of COPD, check out the following guides:

• When Should You Get Tested for COPD?
• Everything You Need to Know About Lung Disease Diagnosis

Advocate for Yourself

Ideally, every doctor would always treat men and women equally and would know how to properly diagnose COPD in women just as well as men. However, this is unfortunately not the case, and the responsibility often falls instead on women patients to advocate for themselves.

Unfortunately, this isn't always easy to do, especially if you (like many people) find medical professionals intimidating or simply have trouble speaking up at the right times. Luckily, being a good self-advocate is something you can learn, and you can even enlist others to help you if you need.

One way to become a better self-advocate is to be more pro-active about your health in general. That means educating yourself about your body and common disease symptoms, and being diligent about bringing things up with your doctor if you have any symptoms or concerns.

It could also mean standing up for yourself if a medical professional doesn't take your concerns seriously. If you think that something you're worried about needs to be looked into further, don't rely on your doctor bring up the next step; if you go to your doctor with persistent respiratory symptoms, for example, you might need to ask your doctor specifically to do a diagnostic spirometry test.

If you're unable to advocate for yourself for any reason, or simply need some backup, you can always bring someone else to advocate on your behalf. Sometimes, two voices are more effective than one at getting stubborn healthcare professionals to listen to your needs.

It's also important for women to be aware of doctors potential biases and find a doctor they can trust. Your doctor should be someone who listens, respects your concerns, and never ignores

COPD is a complicated disease that comes with a variety of extraneous health concerns, including an increased risk for several other serious diseases. One of those diseases is lung cancer, a condition that is quite different from COPD, but still linked to the chronic lung disease in numerous ways.

Research shows people who have COPD are about twice as likely to develop lung cancer than people who don't have COPD. Unfortunately, research suggests that the vast majority of people with COPD have no idea about this increased lung cancer risk.

This lack of awareness is dangerous, because unaware COPD patients may be less likely to take important cancer-prevention measures or watch for lung cancer symptoms. This can result in fewer lung cancer screenings, later lung cancer diagnoses, and fewer efforts among COPD patients to make healthy lifestyle changes that could lower their lung cancer risk.

In this post, we're going to take a closer look at why there's such a strong connection between these two deadly lung diseases, including what factors tie them together and what sets them apart. We'll also discuss what this elevated risk for lung cancer means for people with COPD, explaining what types of lung cancers you might be at risk for and what you can do, specifically, to reduce your future lung cancer risk.

Lung Cancer and COPD: Fundamentally Different Yet Fundamentally Linked

At first, it might seem strange that lung cancer and COPD are linked at all, especially when they are such vastly different types of diseases. After all, COPD is a chronic, lifelong illnesses and cancer is, well... cancer! And we often tend to think about cancer as a unique type of disease in a category all on its own.

But, while it's true that lung cancer and COPD are fundamentally different diseases, they actually have many characteristics in common—aside from the fact that they both affect the lungs. For example, both diseases can cause very similar breathing symptoms and they even share many of the same risk factors and causes.

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But to understand why having COPD increases your risk for lung cancer, you'll first need some basic knowledge about both of these diseases and how they work. Then, we can take a closer look at some key similarities and differences between lung cancer and COPD that can shed some light on how they're connected.

In the next few sections, we'll explain everything you need to know about lung cancer and COPD to get the most out of this guide, including what causes both diseases, how they develop, and how their progression compares.

Then, we'll jump right into discussing how the diseases are linked before giving you some helpful, science-based tips for how to reduce your risk for lung cancer if you have COPD.

The Basics of Lung Cancer vs COPD

Lung cancer is a deadly disease caused by cancerous cells and tumors growing inside the lungs. It is the leading cause of cancer deaths in the US, killing more people than breast cancer, prostate cancer, and colorectal cancer combined; however, lung cancer can be cured with proper treatment in some cases, especially if you catch it early on.

By contrast, COPD is a chronic, lifelong disease that can be treated, but not cured. It is largely caused by damage and inflammation in the lung tissues and airways that makes it more and more difficult to breathe as the disease progresses.

Lung cancer begins as soon as cancerous cells appear in the lungs, though it can take some time before the cancer is detectable or the first symptoms start to appear. COPD, on the other hand, often doesn't have a clear beginning, as it is the result of chronic lung inflammation that occurs over the course of many years.

Most of the time, COPD is caused by smoking and long-term exposure to respiratory irritants like secondhand smoke and air pollution. Smoking is also the number one cause of lung cancer, though other respiratory irritants and carcinogenic substances (e.g. asbestos and radon gas) can also cause lung cancer, especially if you are exposed to them repeatedly over time.

How Cancerous Mutations Take Over Your Lungs

Cancerous lung cells start as normal lung cells that become cancerous after acquiring certain types of DNA mutations. However, not all cell mutations are cancerous; some mutations are harmless, while others get corrected (or the whole cell gets destroyed) before they cause any problems.

So what is it exactly that makes a cancer cell different—and more dangerous—than a cell with a non-cancerous mutation or a healthy, normal cell? The answer is that cells only become cancerous when they develop several specific types of mutations that cause the cell to stop following certain “rules.”

In particular, cancer cells have mutations that allow them to multiply freely and ignore the usual controls that constrain how and when cells divide. They also have mutations that allow them to escape the body's natural defenses that would otherwise repair or destroy these mutated cells.

These cancerous cells are dangerous because the body can't detect and destroy them on its own; this allows the cancer cells to multiply out of control and spread to places they're never supposed to be. Eventually, these rogue cells begin to interfere with normal biological functions, though their exact effects depend on where the cancer is located and what types of mutations the cancer cells have.

Carcinogens and Lung Cancer

One thing that's important to know about cell mutations is that they can happen essentially by chance. They can happen any time a cell multiplies, or any time a cell's DNA gets copied, duplicated, or repaired.

However, some things—known as carcinogens—can cause a significant increase in DNA mutations. More mutations means a higher risk for cancer, since it creates more opportunities for a cancerous mutation to occur.

Some carcinogens, like UV radiation from sunlight, can mutate DNA directly by striking the DNA molecules or triggering a chemical reaction that damages DNA inside a cell. Other carcinogens, like tobacco smoke, indirectly mutate DNA by causing repeated inflammation and injury that damages DNA both in the cells it touches and in the surrounding tissues that get inflamed.

In general, your risk for cancer gets higher the more frequently you're exposed to cancer hazards. It's kind of like rolling a dice; your chances of developing a cancerous mutation on any given roll is very low, but the more times you roll the dice, the more likely you are to “roll” a cancerous mutation eventually.

Different Diseases, Similar Symptoms

As we explained in the section above, lung cancer happens via a completely different biological mechanism than COPD. However, both diseases directly affect the lungs' ability to function, which means both diseases can cause some of the same respiratory symptoms.

COPD causes breathing symptoms because the damage it does to your lungs and airways restricts airflow to the lungs and reduces how much oxygen they can absorb. Lung cancer causes cancer cells to spread across healthy lung tissue and/or form tumors on the lungs, which interferes with normal functions and makes it more difficult to breathe.

Symptoms of COPD:

• Shortness of breath
• Difficulty breathing
• Chronic cough (especially a wet cough that produces phlegm)
• Wheezing
• Chest tightness
• Fatigue
• Frequent respiratory infections
• Swelling in legs, ankles, or feet
• Unexplained weight loss (in the advanced stages of COPD)
  
  

Symptoms of Lung Cancer:

• Shortness of breath
• Difficulty breathing
• Persistent cough (dry or wet)
• Coughing up blood (or blood-streaked mucus)
• Chest pain
• Wheezing
• Hoarse voice
• Recurring lung infections
• Chronic weakness or fatigue
• Loss of appetite
• Unexplained weight loss

Now, while some of these symptoms seem very similar, they can present themselves very differently in people with lung cancer versus people with COPD. Also, it's important to remember that every case of lung cancer and COPD is different, and symptoms can vary widely between people with the same disease.

One major difference between lung cancer and COPD symptoms is that COPD symptoms are life-long and don't get much better with treatment or time. They often start out very mild in the early stages of COPD and slowly get worse over the course of months and years.

Lung cancer symptoms, on the other hand, can get better with successful treatment and even fully disappear if the cancer is cured. However, symptoms often don't show up until the later stages of cancer, when the cancer is much less treatable and has likely already spread.

People who are diagnosed with early-stage COPD can live with the disease for many years before the symptoms get severe enough to significantly burden their lives. People with moderate to severe lung cancer symptoms are not likely to live long with the disease unless their cancer can be successfully treated or cured.

Certain Types of Lung Cancer are More Strongly Associated with COPD

There are at least a dozen different kinds of lung cancer, but the most common ones fall into one of two main types: small cell lung cancer (SCLC) or non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Non-small cell lung cancers are by far the most common, and they make up about 80-85 percent of all lung cancers.

Compared to non-small cell lung cancers, small-cell lung cancers tend to be more aggressive and progress more quickly. However, every case of lung cancer is different, and how the disease presents and progresses can vary significantly from person to person.

All types of lung cancer are strongly associated with both smoking and COPD. About 85 percent of all lung cancers are caused by smoking, and about 40-70 percent of people with lung cancer also have COPD.

However, some types of lung cancer are more closely tied to smoking and COPD than others. People with COPD seem to be more prone to non-small cell lung cancers and have a particularly high risk for squamous cell carcinoma (a sub-type of NSCLC).

In fact, about half of all people who get non-small cell lung cancer also have COPD, and about 80 percent are current or former smokers. Small-cell lung cancers, by comparison, are almost always associated with smoking; up to 98 percent of of SCLC patients have a history of smoking.

Here is a table describing some of the most common types of lung cancers.

It's important to note that lung cancer doesn't always stay just in the lungs. Over time, lung cancer can become metastatic, which means that the cancer cells can break off and travel to other parts of the body.

This allows the cancer to take root in other organs, most commonly the bones, brain, liver, adrenal gland, and the other lung. When this happens, the resulting cancer is known as a secondary cancer, and it retains the same characteristics as the cancer it originally came from.

Why Do People With COPD Have a Higher Risk for Lung Cancer?

Now that you know the basics of how both lung cancer and COPD work, let's take a closer look at why one disease affects the other and how both of these diseases are so closely intertwined. We'll look at 3 main factors in particular that help explain the link: shared disease risk factors, accumulated lung damage, and individual susceptibility to lung disease.

Shared Risk Factors

One of the main links between COPD and lung cancer is that both diseases have many of the same risk factors and causes. A risk factor is essentially any kind of health problem, physical characteristic, behavior, or lifestyle factor that is known to increase your risk for developing a certain disease.

This means that some of the things that increase your chances of developing COPD—like tobacco smoke and certain respiratory toxins—can also increase your risk of developing lung cancer. In fact, up to 90% of both COPD cases and lung cancer cases are caused by smoking.

This makes sense if you consider the fact that COPD, just like lung cancer, is associated with repeated damage and inflammation in the lungs. Even if you're not a smoker, being diagnosed with COPD means that you are more likely than people who don't have COPD to have other risk factors that increase your chances of getting lung cancer in the future.

Let's take a closer look at the risk factors for both lung cancer and COPD. Though some of the risk factors differ, you should notice that there are a lot that overlap.

Risk Factors for Lung Cancer:

• Older age
• Smoking tobacco (responsible for about 80% of lung cancer deaths)
• Exposure to secondhand smoke (responsible for up to 7 thousand deaths per year)
• Exposure to radon gas (the second most common cause of lung cancer)
• Exposure to asbestos (especially in an occupational environment)
• Exposure to other carcinogens at work (e.g. diesel exhaust fumes, coal compounds, silica dust, arsenic, etc.)
• Exposure to air pollution
• Previous radiation therapy
• Family history of lung cancer

Risk Factors for COPD:

• Older age
• Smoking tobacco (the number one cause of COPD)
• Exposure to secondhand smoke
• Exposure to radon gas
• Exposure to asbestos
• Exposure to other respiratory irritants, including hazardous fumes, chemicals, and airborne particles, especially in an occupational environment (e.g. dust, car exhaust, and fumes from products like cleaning solutions, adhesives, treated lumber, etc.)
• Exposure to air pollution
• A history of frequent or severe respiratory infections (especially during childhood)
• Alpha-1 Antitrypsin Deficiency (a rare genetic disease)

Lung Damage Caused by COPD

While common risk factors (like genetics) and common causes (like smoking) explain some of the relationship between lung cancer and COPD, there are other factors at play. Research shows that simply having COPD is an independent risk factor for lung cancer on its own.

Researchers also believe that certain types of lung cancer—squamous cell carcinoma, in particular—are the result of COPD-related inflammation in the lungs. After all, chronic inflammation is a well-known cause of cancer as well as an inherent characteristic of COPD

This chronic inflammation causes certain physiological changes to lung tissues, including a decrease in DNA repair proteins and an increase in oxidative stress. These changes—along with the repeated cycles of inflammation, damage, and repair—can lead to cancerous mutations.

If you've spent much time at all reading about COPD online, you've probably come across articles and advertisements for “natural” therapies and alternative treatments for COPD. These include things like vitamin supplements, lung detox cleanses, and unconventional medical treatments (like stem cell therapy) that claim to relieve COPD symptoms, regenerate lung function, or even cure chronic lung disease.

These treatments might seem promising at first glance, but the vast majority of “alternative” COPD treatments just don't live up to the hype. Most are unproven, dis-proven, or simply have very little, if any, real health benefits to offer at all.

However, the hope (however false) that these treatments offer is undeniably—and understandably—enticing to many people with COPD and other chronic respiratory diseases. The appeal is even stronger for patients struggling with severe breathing symptoms who don't get the results they want from conventional treatments for lung disease.

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Because of this, it's no wonder that many people with COPD and other chronic health conditions turn to “natural” and alternative treatments for relief. Unfortunately, even though many of these treatments (e.g. vitamin supplements) might seem harmless, they can be risky and even dangerous in ways that you might not expect.

In this post, we're going to take a look at some of the most popular “natural” and alternative COPD treatments to see whether they work as advertised and what they're all about. We'll do our best to take an objective approach that considers both the available research on each “treatment” as well as expert reviews and opinions on how safe and effective the therapy is.

We'll also discuss some simple strategies that can help you recognize dubious treatments and unreliable health advice in general. That way you can better protect yourself from all kinds of health and disease misinformation, not just the stuff related to COPD and respiratory disease.

Recognizing & Understanding COPD Treatment Scams

Lots of people are interested in the idea of “natural” or “alternative” medicine, and its a particularly common topic to stumble upon online. And while some of these treatments do have some proven benefits, most of them don't meet the standards required to qualify as a valid treatment for COPD.

Unfortunately, figuring out what works and what doesn't isn't easy, especially in the murky waters of social media and amid the explosion of health product endorsements online. Let's take a closer look at this phenomenon and how it can lead well-meaning people to spread misinformation that exploits the hopes of people suffering from COPD and other chronic health conditions.

Misinformation Can Be Sneaky: Beware of What You Read Online

You can find ads, articles, and social media posts making untrue claims about dubious COPD treatments in just about every corner of the internet—often right alongside valid information about proven COPD treatments. Without further investigation, it's impossible to tell what's legitimate, what's inaccurate, and what's a downright scam.

This is especially difficult when misinformation is posted with good intent by well-meaning people who believe it to be true. After all, health, disease, and disease treatment are all extremely complex topics that take a great deal of experience and expertise to fully understand.

There are also bad actors who intentionally peddle false treatments in order to take advantage of patients, caregivers, and loved ones seeking alternative solutions for their health problems. They deliberately twist the truth by misrepresenting science and cherry-picking data to make their “treatments” sound more legitimate or effective than they really are.

Unfortunately, the internet is the perfect environment for misinformation to spread and multiply, a fact that scammers and snake oil salesman are all too eager to exploit. It allows them to not only spread their lies with little pushback, but also reach a massive audience of people with minimal effort and expense.

That's why you should never take endorsements for natural, alternative, or novel COPD therapies at their word; always take the time to investigate and verify first. Fortunately, there are plenty of expert resources that can help us better understand the science behind these “treatments” and determine which ones are legitimate and what's too good to be true.

We consulted a large number of academic studies and other expert resources for this guide, and you'll find the links to all these sources sprinkled throughout the following sections. For even more information about COPD treatments and how to manage your COPD symptoms, check out our large repository of practical COPD guides in our Respiratory Resource Center.

The Different Flavors of COPD Treatment Scams

Natural and alternative COPD treatments (whether legitimate or sham) aren't limited to any particular type or category. Just as legitimate COPD treatments take several different forms (e.g. medication, diet & lifestyle changes, etc), you can find alternative treatments that fit each of those categories and more.

For the sake of this guide, we're going to group the most common natural and alternative COPD treatments into four different categories. This lets us more easily compare alternative treatments with common characteristics and tease out the differences between those that work and those that don't.

Here's a quick summary of the four main types of natural and alternative COPD treatments you're likely to come across online:

• Supplements & Nutrition-Based Treatments: These include specific vitamins, herbs, and other supplements that advocates claim can relieve COPD symptoms or improve the disease itself in some way.
• Lung “Detox” Treatments: These are treatments that claim to cleanse your lungs (and therefore make them healthier & relieve respiratory symptoms) by getting rid of toxins or other supposedly harmful substances from your lungs.
• Lifestyle remedies: These include activities, habits, and lifestyle changes that are claimed to relieve COPD symptoms or otherwise improve the disease.
• Stem Cell Treatments: These are cellular therapies involving stem cells—usually offered by private clinics—that are advertised to reduce lung disease symptoms or reverse the course of COPD.

Measuring The Merits of Alternative Treatments for COPD

It's important to acknowledge that evaluating disease treatments is a complicated and nuanced process. It's involves not only determining if a treatment works, but how it works, how well it works, and if the potential benefits are worth the potential risks.

It often takes years of research and expert analysis to evaluate a new treatment, and the answers are often not clear cut. That's why we have to consider a spectrum of possibilities for natural and alternative COPD treatments, including the possibility that some treatments might have marginal benefits even if they don't live up to the promises that the people promoting the treatments make.

For each treatment we discuss in this guide, we'll present a brief overview of the available research and what that research means for people with COPD. Our goal is to give you a better idea of each treatment's overall effectiveness and whether or not it has proven merit as a treatment for COPD.

Keep in mind that what we've included in this guide is just a snapshot of all the available information out there on these topics. It is not a comprehensive guide, and it's certainly not meant to be a substitute for professional medical advice.

It's always best to consult your doctor or other specialists involved in your treatment who know the most about your particular health needs. They can offer the best advice about what kinds of medications, supplements, and other treatments are right for you.

A Note on Conventional Medicine

Because the point of this guide is to identify unproven or “sham” COPD treatments, we won't be talking much about “conventional” COPD treatments in this guide. Treatments used in standard COPD healthcare—such as inhalers, antibiotics, and steroid medications—have already been thoroughly vetted by experts and are widely accepted as the most effective ways to treat COPD.

In this guide, we're focusing instead on non-traditional remedies: things that are not usually considered to be a standard part of COPD healthcare. Almost by definition, these remedies haven't (yet) met the high standard of evidence that medical experts generally require before incorporating a treatment into conventional medical care.

In this guide, we'll attempt to untangle which—if any—of the most popular natural and alternative COPD remedies actually have any merit, as well as which ones are dangerous, disproven, or downright scams. We'll also discuss some of the common fallacies and science misinterpretations that underlie many these false health claims.

If you're interested in learning more about conventional COPD treatments, we've included links to several guides on the topic below. These guides will give you a more in-depth look at all the major COPD therapies, including the research on why, how, and how well the treatments work.

• How Supplemental Oxygen Therapy Treats COPD
• How Antibiotics Work to Treat COPD Exacerbations
• How COPD Inhalers Work: An In-Depth Look at Long-acting and Short-acting Bronchodilators
• How Steroid Medications Work to Treat COPD

A Note on Self-Prescribing Natural & Alternative Treatments

While we will continue point this out in specific examples throughout this guide, we think think it's important to emphasize how risky is can be to start any kind of natural or alternative treatment on your own. “Natural” does not mean harmless, and even the most benign-sounding natural and alternative “treatments” can come with some serious risks.

For example, one 2015 study found that there is an average of 23,000 emergency room visits every year in the US related to dietary supplements alone. Other studies have found that some “natural” and herbal supplements were tainted with potentially dangerous prescription drugs (you can find a list of these products here on the FDA's website).

That said, many natural and alternative treatments are available right over the counter at your local pharmacy or grocery store. But just because they're widely available doesn't mean they work (or that they're safe), which is why it's always best to talk to your doctor before starting any kind of new health treatment— even if it's just a “natural” vitamin supplement or dietary routine.

Even if you do decide to go ahead and start a new treatment without your doctor's input, it's still very important to let your doctor know. Your doctor needs accurate, up-to-date information about your health to give you the best possible treatment, and that means he needs to know about every medication, vitamin, supplement, natural remedy, and alternative treatment you use.

Nutritional Supplements & Herbal Treatments for COPD: Do They Work?

If you've ever taken a look at the supplement aisle at your local grocery store or pharmacy, you've probably noticed the rows and rows of supplements on sale. If you take the claims on the bottle at face value, it seems like there's a supplement for everything from anxiety and depression to digestive issues and chronic pain.

Supplements are by far the most popular category of natural treatments. This is no wonder since they're available just about everywhere and make such appealing claims. They're used by wide variety of people—both healthy and unhealthy—to treat an astonishingly wide variety of health conditions and concerns.

Supplements touted as COPD treatments are claimed to bestow a variety of different benefits including better lung function and reduced COPD symptoms like breathlessness and fatigue. Unfortunately, research on these treatments tends to come up with weak, disappointing, or inconsistent results.

That said, many supplements are relatively harmless and inexpensive, which is why so many people are willing to give them a try, even if they don't get concrete results. Polls show that 86% of Americans take supplements, while only 24% of them have a diagnosed nutrient deficiency.

In the following sections, we're going to take a closer look at some of the most popular categories of supplements for COPD. These include: vitamin & mineral supplements, herbal supplements, and anti-oxidant supplements.

Vitamin & Minerals Supplements: 7 Dubious “Natural” Remedies for COPD

Vitamin and mineral supplements are a tricky issue, because they definitely do have a legitimate benefits for some people in some situations. The problem is that they're often useless—and sometimes even harmful—when self-prescribed.

Most supplements are only proven to work when prescribed by a doctor for very specific conditions, such as confirmed nutrient deficiencies and complications of certain diseases. That means that, unless they're specifically recommended by your doctor, over-the-counter supplements are not likely to have any beneficial effect on your COPD.

Generally, most people only need enough vitamins and nutrients to meet the minimum threshold for what their body needs to function. In most cases, taking extra vitamins and nutrients beyond that threshold doesn't “enhance” the body's functioning—they just go to waste.

The same logic applies to “superfoods” and other nutrient-rich foods that are touted as having specific health effects. While eating healthy foods is important, eating any one specific healthy food generally isn't; you can get just as good of results from eating a balanced diet made up of a wide variety of different healthy foods.

Of course, some people with COPD have nutrient deficiencies, and certain types of nutrient deficiencies are more common in people with COPD. The main problem with vitamin and mineral “remedies” for COPD is that they're not advertised as a treatment for a deficiency—they're claimed to have specific health effects all on their own.

In most cases, those claims are unsubstantiated; though research has found that some vitamins are correlated with improved COPD symptoms, they usually fail to find any causal link between taking vitamin supplements and improvements COPD.

Here's how one research review put it: “Although there are many studies that associate vitamins with improvement in lung function tests, there is no clear evidence of the benefit of vitamin supplements. Most studies regarding supplements showed no benefit of multivitamin supplementation in symptoms, spirometric function or hospitalization for COPD.”

But for the sake of of debunking some common natural COPD remedy myths, let's take a closer look at some of the most common vitamin and mineral remedies touted as treatments for COPD.

Vitamin D

Vitamin D is probably the most frequently recommended supplement for COPD. This is partially because people with COPD have a higher-than-average incidence of vitamin D deficiency, but also because vitamin D is known to play an important role in immune system function and general respiratory health.

Proponents of vitamin D sometimes claim that vitamin D supplements can improve breathing function, reduce exacerbations, and relieve other symptoms of COPD. This idea is supported by research that has found improvements in some patients' COPD symptoms after giving those patients supplements (or injections) containing vitamin D.

However, studies that actually measure patients' vitamin D levels before the start of vitamin D treatment have repeatedly found that the only patients who benefit are the ones who started out deficient in vitamin D. This indicates that vitamin D supplements don't improve general, baseline COPD symptoms, but rather symptoms that have been exacerbated by a vitamin D deficiency.

Even so, there is some discussion in the medical community about whether or not it's worth it to recommend vitamin D supplements to patients as a preventative measure against vitamin D deficiency. That's because minor vitamin D deficiencies (often referred to as “vitamin D insufficiencies”) are relatively common, and because vitamin D supplements are relatively safe in doses up to 2,000 IU (or 50 mcg) daily.

Ultimately, however, the only COPD patients who are likely to benefit from vitamin D supplements are those who are not getting enough vitamin D in the first place. Since most people get up to 90% of their vitamin D from the sun, you might have a higher risk of being deficient if you have don't spend much time outside or you don't get enough of the right kind of sunlight where you live.

If you think you might be deficient in vitamin D, the first step is to schedule an appointment with your doctor. Depending on the circumstances, your doctor might recommend formally testing your vitamin D levels or he might treat you for a deficiency based on your symptoms and risk factors alone.

Magnesium

Magnesium is an essential mineral that plays an important role in lung function and breathing, and some studies have even found correlation between low magnesium levels and an increased risk of COPD exacerbations. Because of this, it's no surprise that magnesium supplements are frequently touted as a natural treatment for COPD.

Unfortunately, while intravenous magnesium is considered a valid COPD treatment for patients hospitalized with COPD exacerbations, there is no evidence that magnesium supplements have any benefit for people with asthma or COPD. In fact, some research suggests that taking too much magnesium can have respiratory side effects that could be particularly dangerous for people with respiratory diseases.

One the most serious potential side effects is pulmonary edema, which causes the lungs to fill up with fluid and can lead to acute respiratory distress. Another danger of magnesium is that it interacts with many common medications (e.g. by making them less effective), including antibiotics, blood thinners, and medications used to treat osteoporosis, high blood pressure, and heart disease.

Because of these and other risks—and the fact that there's little or no evidence of benefit—magnesium supplements are not generally recommended for the general public or for people with COPD. Despite this, research shows that up to one third of COPD patients might be deficient in magnesium, and magnesium supplements are considered to be relatively safe in doses of up to 350mg daily daily (for adults).

However, this doesn't mean that you shouldn't still talk to your doctor before starting magnesium supplements, even if you think that you're magnesium deficient. It's important to get your doctor's opinion on whether magnesium supplements are safe for your condition and to make sure that they won't interfere with any other medications you take.

Calcium

Calcium is a mineral that's often included in lists of natural supplements and treatments for COPD. This is likely because it's an important nutrient for preventing osteoporosis, which is a condition that's especially common in older adults and people with COPD.

Unfortunately, this leads some to mistake calcium as a type of COPD treatment, despite the fact that calcium doesn't have any kind of direct impact on COPD or its symptoms. However, osteoporosis can cause injuries and mobility difficulties that can significantly effect your ability to manage your COPD.

If you don't get enough calcium, your bones can start to lose density, which makes them brittle and weak. This can lead to a variety of detrimental health effects—including instability, falls, bone fractures, and loss of physical mobility—that can lead to a downward spiral of poor health and worsened COPD.

The best way to make sure you're meeting your daily calcium requirements (about 1,200 mg daily for older adults) is to eat calcium-rich foods like dairy and calcium-fortified foods.

Lungs affected by COPD are very sensitive, particularly to things like respiratory irritants, physical strain, and less-than-ideal breathing conditions (such as hot or humid air). Because of this, if you have COPD, you've probably noticed that your COPD symptoms tend to flare up in certain environments or when you do certain things.

Many common habits and everyday activities can trigger COPD symptoms, and your lungs tend to get even more sensitive to these things as the disease progresses. Because of this, a vital part of learning how to manage your COPD symptoms effectively is learning how to protect your lungs from these triggers.

In some cases, that means going out of your way to avoid—or find a different approach—to activities and situations that can make your symptoms worse. Recognizing these situations can be a bit tricky, however, because many things can affect your lungs without causing obvious or immediate symptoms.

For every COPD trigger that you notice, there are likely others that you don't. Unfortunately, the hazards you don't know about can actually be the most dangerous; you can expose yourself to them over and over again without even realizing they pose a risk.

For example, most people with COPD know they're supposed to stay away from cigarette smoke, but many don't realize that using common household cleaning solutions can also harm their lungs. And that's just one of a plethora of lesser-known activities that can harm your lungs and/or exacerbate COPD symptoms.

In this guide, we've put together a list of more than a dozen different activities that can be dangerous or risky for people with COPD. We cover the little things—like sleeping in the wrong position at night—and the bigger, complex issues, like dangerous eating habits and ignoring serious symptoms that could signal a medical emergency.

Some of the things you see on this list might seem familiar, but you're bound to learn something new as you go through this guide. Our goal is to help you recognize at least a few activities that you didn't know were risky before, and to provide you with some practical tools and techniques you can use to protect yourself from those hazards in the future.

You'll find links to many expert online resources throughout this guide that you can use to learn even more about COPD hazards and what you can do to avoid them. We've also provided links to several other practical COPD health and wellness guides from our Respiratory Resource Center, where you can find even more detailed advice and information that expands on many of the topics covered in this post.

Activities & Habits You Should Avoid if You Have COPD

Cooking Without Ventilation

Many people don't realize that cooking releases smoke, oils, and other pollutants into the air that are harmful to your lungs. In fact, research shows that people who cook often—and are thus exposed to these fumes repeatedly over time—have reduced lung function, increased respiratory symptoms, and a higher risk for developing COPD.

Even short-term exposure to cooking fumes can affect your lungs and make your COPD symptoms worse. Prolonged or repeated exposure is even more risky and has the potential to cause additional long-term damage to your lungs.

This is why it's important to use proper ventilation while you cook, especially if you or anyone in your household has COPD. This can not only substantially reduce your exposure to respiratory irritants while you're cooking, but it also prevents the pollution from building up inside your home.

If you have windows in your kitchen, opening them up before you start cooking is one simple way to ventilate the room. This isn't the most efficient form of ventilation, but it will allow the fumes to drift outdoors instead of staying trapped in the room.

You can ventilate your kitchen even more efficiently if you help the air current along using a fan (facing out the window) or a built-in kitchen vent. Some kitchens also have vent hoods installed directly over the stove to whisk away cooking fumes straight at the source.

However, kitchen vents and fume hoods only work this way if they are actually connected to a pipe that takes the air outside. Unfortunately, some “vents” that come in kitchens—especially those installed under cabinets and wall-mounted microwaves—are nothing more than recirculating fans that blow the fumes right back into the room.

To learn more about how to reduce indoor air pollution, check out our guide on How to Improve Your Air Quality at Home.

Drinking Alcohol Before Bed

While there's no blanket rule saying that people with COPD shouldn't drink, you should still be a little extra cautious with alcohol if you have COPD. One reason for this is that alcohol can cause a side effect known as respiratory depression, which causes you to breathe more slowly and take more shallow breaths than you normally would.

Mild respiratory depression also happens naturally during certain stages of sleep, which is another reason why many people with COPD have increased shortness of breath and difficulty sleeping through the night. If you drink alcohol too soon before bed, it can suppress your breathing even further, making it even harder to breathe effectively while you're asleep.

This is particularly dangerous if you have a health condition like sleep apnea or COPD that also affects your ability to breathe during the night. These conditions also cause nighttime breathing problems that significantly increase your risk for nighttime oxygen desaturation (PDF link), which happens when your blood oxygen levels fall too low while you sleep.

When you add a respiratory depressant like alcohol to the mix, you're even more likely to have trouble breathing and experience low blood oxygen levels at night. Unfortunately, because it happens while you're asleep, you might not even realize that you're not getting enough oxygen at night until it starts to take a toll on your health.

In the short term, nighttime oxygen deprivation can trigger uncomfortable morning symptoms (including headache, fatigue, and shortness of breath) that can linger throughout the day and make your COPD symptoms worse. Over the long term, nighttime oxygen desaturation can put you at risk for more serious health problems like cardiovascular damage and cognitive decline.

This is why, if you have COPD, you should be extra careful about not only how much alcohol you drink, but also when you drink it. That means drinking in moderation, avoiding alcohol too close to bedtime, and being careful not to mix alcohol with other medications that can cause respiratory depression (including opioids, sleeping pills, and other sedative medications).

Showering Without Ventilation

Showering is a difficult activity for many people with COPD. The physical exertion of showering makes many people feel breathless, and it tends to get worse as the heat and humidity from the shower fill up the room.

This can be difficult cope with every time you need to bathe, but ventilating your bathroom can make it much easier to bear. That's why, before you start your shower, you should always make sure there's a way for the heat and humidity to escape.

You can do this by opening a bathroom window or, ideally, using a proper ventilation fan. If your bathroom doesn't have either, it might be worth considering getting one installed; too much humidity doesn't only make it harder to breathe, but it also encourages mold growth.

Mold tends to grow in enclosed spaces where humidity lingers, and it's a serious respiratory hazard that makes COPD symptoms worse. In order to keep your home safe, you should always vent excess humidity and look out for signs of mold growth, especially in places like bathrooms, basements, walls, ceilings, and around water faucets and pipes.

Taking Over-the-Counter Medications (Without Your Doctor's Permission)

When you have a chronic disease like COPD, you have to be very cautious about what drugs and medications you take. Even things that might seem harmless, like supplements or over-the-counter medicines, have the potential to cause dangerous side effects or interact negatively with other medications.

For example, many cold medications, allergy medications, and decongestants that you can buy at the store can cause mild respiratory depression. This side-effect is usually not too much of a concern for healthy people, but it can worsen breathing problems in people with COPD.

It's also important to be aware that certain circumstances can amplify the side-effects of over-the-counter medications, which is why you should always read the directions and warnings for every medication you take. Fore example, medications that usually only cause mild respiratory depression can cause moderate to severe respiratory depression if you take them at night, in large does, or in combination with another medication that lists respiratory depression as a potential side effect.

This highlights the danger of drug interactions, which happens when you take two medications (or a medication and a supplement) that have different effects on your body when they're combined compared to when you take them alone. Depending on the type of interaction, this can make a medication less effective, make its effects stronger, or cause additional side effects to appear.

To be on the safe side, you should never take any new medications or supplements without getting input from your doctor first. Additionally, you should always tell your doctor about every medicine, herbal product, and supplement you take, no matter how small or insignificant you think it might be.

Smoking

Smoking is a huge lung hazard—one of the biggest—and it's important to bring up even though it might seem obvious to some. We want to emphasize that quitting smoking is always beneficial for your health, no matter how many years you've been smoking and no matter how advanced your COPD has become.

Unfortunately, many people with COPD don't think it's worth it to quit. It's a common misconception that it won't make much of a difference to stop smoking once you've already developed a smoking-related disease.

However, this way of thinking is not only false, but downright dangerous. Quitting smoking at any time has numerous short-term and long term benefits for your overall health and your COPD.

Research suggests that quitting smoking can actually improve your COPD symptoms, slow down lung function decline, and generally slow down the progression of the disease. On the other hand, continuing to smoke while you have COPD can worsen your COPD symptoms, make your lungs more prone to infection (PDF link), and cause you to have more frequent COPD exacerbations.

Smoking can also affect your baseline breathing ability, as COPD patients who smoke have quicker lung function decline (PDF link). What's more, COPD isn't the only smoking-related disease you can get; if you continue smoking, you increase your risk for lung cancer, cardiovascular disease, lung cancer, diabetes, stroke, and more.

There's a reason that quitting smoking is considered a vital, first-line treatment for COPD, and you shouldn't take it lightly. Even though quitting smoking is hard (really, really hard!), it's more than worth all the work it takes to make it happen.

And don't worry! You don't have to figure it out all on your own; there are tons of quit-smoking resources out there you can use for help.

If you'd like to learn how to get started or how to find all the quit-smoking resources you could ever need, check out our comprehensive, 3-part guide on how to quit smoking:

• Part 1: Overcoming Doubts & Finding Resources to Help You Quit
• Part 2: Coping with Nicotine Withdrawal & Choosing a Quit Smoking Medication
• Part 3: Taking the First Steps & Strategies for Staying Smoke Free

Doing Dusty, Dirty, & Hazardous Jobs

Pretty much all allergens and small particulates, including dust, pollen, and mold, can harm your lungs and trigger COPD symptoms if you breathe them in. Many chemicals emit lung-toxic fumes as well, and they can come from unexpected places, including household products and home construction materials like treated wood, varnishes, and paint.

Because of this, people with COPD should generally try to avoid going dirty jobs, particularly work that kicks up dust (and other airborne particles) or might expose you to chemical fumes. This includes many types of home maintenance projects, including home repair, renovations, and heavy cleaning projects around the house.

Whenever possible, you should ask someone else to help you with these jobs—or at least the most risky parts—so you don't have to put your already-compromised lungs at further risk. If you have the means, you should consider hiring professionals to do hazardous construction, renovation, and cleaning jobs (e.g. mold removal) for you.

You should also take care with materials that can release hazardous fumes into your house, including many types of paints, lumber, adhesives, and even new carpets and flooring. If you can't avoid them while they're being installed or used in your home, consider staying somewhere else for awhile until the fumes have time to dissipate.

If you have no other choice but to do a risky project on your own, make sure you wear respiratory protection and—most importantly—that use the appropriate type of respiratory protection for the job. Some things are fine to do with dust masks while others require full respirators for safety, and if you choose the wrong equipment it might not offer any protection at all.

To learn more about the correct type of respiratory protection equipment to use for various jobs, you can reference this guide from the US Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).

Going Outside When Air Pollution is High

Research shows that air pollution can have a significant impact on people with COPD; it can worsen breathing symptoms, increase your risk for exacerbation and hospitalization, and even increase your risk of death. Because of this, you should do your best to be mindful about when you go outside and try to stay indoors when your local pollution index is high.

You can find your current air pollution levels by checking your city's air quality index (AQI), which you can get from your local weather station or by looking up your zip code on airnow.gov. The air quality index is an simple, color-coded scale that tells you how healthy or unhealthy the outside air is to breathe.

In general, anytime air pollution rises above the yellow (moderate) zone, you should do two things: First, you should avoid spending time outside, and especially avoid doing any exercise or strenuous activity outdoors; that's because, when you exert yourself, you breathe in more air—and thus and more pollution—compared to when you're at rest.

Second, you should keep your doors and windows shut as much as possible on high-pollution days. You can still air out your home when air pollution is low, but if you don't check your local AQI first, you could accidentally invite all kinds of outdoor pollution to enter your home.

When you do exercise outside or do other activities outdoors, you should try to schedule them for times when air pollution is the lowest; often this is in the earlier and later hours of the day. You should also try to keep your plans flexible, that way you can easily reschedule them if the air quality ends up being too poor.

It helps if you familiarize yourself with the air quality patterns in your area, including how pollution levels tend to change throughout the day. If you look up your local air quality report on airnow.com, you can also get a breakdown of recent hour-by-hour trends.

(Image text: To see data on pollution trends in your area, you can look up your local air quality report on airnow.gov and click the button “local trends.”)

If you have seasonal allergies, you should also avoid spending too much time outside when pollen levels are high. You can look up your city or zip code on pollen.com to get all kinds of helpful allergen information, including your local pollen report, future allergen forecasts, and a breakdown of the types of pollen most prevalent in your area.

Cleaning with Common Products

Studies show that many household cleaning products release harmful fumes and aerosols that irritate your lungs and even cause permanent lung function decline. Ammonia and bleach, for example, are both lung irritants that are used in a wide range of different cleaning products.

If you have COPD, you should try to limit your exposure to these and other lung irritants as much as you can to avoid triggering COPD symptoms and doing further, unnecessary damage to your lungs. Instead, choose products that don't contain strong chemicals like ammonia and bleach, and try to find products labeled as having reduced irritants, including fewer fragrances and VOC's.

You can use the EPA's safer chemical ingredient list for reference of what types of chemicals you should seek out and which ones you should avoid. You can also look for cleaning products with the EPA's “Safer Choice” label, or browse through the EPA's catalog of these products online.

Another alternative is to make your own cleaning solutions at home using common—and safer—household products like vinegar, water, baking soda, and soap. You'll find that most cleaning jobs don't require anything fancy and can be done with simple mixtures you can make yourself at home.

To learn more about how to make your own DIY cleaning products, check out this guide on how to reduce chemical irritants in your home. There, you'll step-by-step instructions for making alternatives to several different types of commercial cleaning products, including a scrubbing solution, all-purpose cleaner, and grease-cutting solution.

If y