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.

Those who work in the US military make great sacrifices in service of their country. Those sacrifices often include putting their lives at risk in a number of ways.

As a result, military service members and veterans have a higher risk of getting a variety of injuries, diseases, and other serious health problems. One disease that's particularly common among military veterans is a chronic lung condition known as COPD.

Veterans are more likely to develop COPD for a variety of different reasons, but a major cause is being exposed to chemicals, smoke, and other lung hazards during service. Fortunately, COPD is becoming more widely acknowledged by the US Department of Veterans Affairs as a major health issue facing US military veterans.

Unfortunately, COPD doesn't receive nearly as much public attention as some other health conditions that disproportionately affect military veterans, such as PTSD. As a result, many veterans are not aware of the COPD or the risk factors they possess that could make them vulnerable to the disease.

That's why, in this article, we're going to explain what every military service member, veteran, and their loved ones, should know about COPD. We'll discuss why veterans are more at risk, how you can get the disease during service, and how to reduce your risk of developing COPD.

We'll also explain what you can do to keep your lungs healthy both during and after military service, and how to recognize the early signs of COPD. That way, you can better protect your lungs from hazardous substances and get early treatment as soon as the first symptoms of the disease appear.

Why Do So Many Military Veterans Develop COPD?

If you are new to the term, you should know that COPD stands for Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease and that it is a chronic, life-long respiratory disease that makes it difficult to breathe. There is no known cure for the condition, but it can be managed and even slowed down with the right kind of treatment.

(Click here to learn more about what COPD is, including what each of the four COPD stages looks like and what kinds of treatment options are available.)

The most common cause of COPD is tobacco smoking, but even people who have never smoked a cigarette in their life can still develop the disease. In non-smokers, COPD is often caused by occupational exposure to substances that irritate and damage their lungs.

These harmful substances include things like diesel smoke, chemical fumes, and many types of airborne particles and dust. Unfortunately, military veterans are more likely than most people to have come into contact with these types of substances throughout their lives.

For instance, many people in the military have to work around smoke and chemical fumes during service. Many who are deployed (especially in the Middle East) also face additional respiratory hazards like heavy air pollution and burn pit smoke.

However, exposure to environmental respiratory hazards is not the only reason that veterans are more likely to develop COPD. Significantly more military servicemen and women smoke tobacco compared to the general US population, which no doubt contributes to veterans' high rates of lung diseases, including COPD.

However, it's important to realize that COPD is generally caused by cumulative damage to the lungs after long-term exposure to one or more respiratory irritants. Because of this, a single case of COPD can have more than one cause.

For example, repeated exposure to exhaust fumes during military service can cause lung damage that increases your risk for COPD later in life, even if it doesn't directly cause the disease. COPD also tends to have a delayed onset, which means that your lungs can be damaged badly enough to develop COPD but not show any symptoms for years—or even decades—after the original cause.

Because of this, it is often difficult to pin the blame for the disease on any single factor. In some cases COPD is simply the result of lung damage gradually accumulated over a lifetime of exposure to a variety of different respiratory irritants.

This is particularly important for military service members to understand, because a wide variety of military jobs have the potential to expose you to a higher-than-average amount of respiratory hazards. If you are a current or former service member, learning more about these hazards can help you take better care of your health and better understand your personal risk for COPD.

How Big is the Risk for Veterans?

According to a variety of research studies and observations, veterans face a disproportionately large risk for developing COPD. When compared to those who have never served in the military, studies consistently show higher rates of the disease among veterans.

General statistics show that about 16 million people in the US have been diagnosed COPD, which is about 6.5 percent of the entire population over the age of 18. However, experts believe the true number is much higher because a large number of people who have the disease have not yet been diagnosed.

Unfortunately, it's difficult to find exact statistics on the numbers and rates of COPD among US military veterans as a whole. However, doctors, researchers, and other experts agree that veterans have a notably higher risk of developing COPD and make up a disproportionately large percentage of those needing treatment for the disease.

According to COPD foundation president John W. Walsh, the risk for COPD is nearly three times as high for veterans compared to non-veterans. Research also shows this trend, with one study that reviewed medical data from VA patients finding that more than 8 percent of them had been diagnosed with COPD.

However, other studies estimate the actual prevalence of COPD among veterans to be as high as fifteen to twenty percent, and the disease may be even more common in certain populations of veterans. One study, for instance, recruited 326 veterans from a VA medical center in Cincinnati and found that 33 to 43 percent of them met the clinical criteria for COPD.

How Military Service Can Put You At Risk for COPD

In the next sections, we're going to explain each of the major COPD risks that military service members face in a bit more detail. This will give you a better picture of why veterans are more likely to develop COPD and what you can do to protect yourself from the disease.

Exposure to Dust, Fumes, and Fine Particulates

Many military troops are exposed to hazardous amounts of sand, dust, and other fine particulates when deployed in certain climates. Because of this, veterans who served in the Persian Gulf, Iraq, Afghanistan, and other dry, dusty environments have a higher risk for respiratory conditions like COPD.

Air pollution is another hazard that can irritate and damage your lungs, increasing your risk for COPD and other lung diseases. Unfortunately, air pollution is particularly bad in certain parts of the world where the US military is stationed, including Southwest Asia, Iraq, and Afghanistan.

Burn pits are another dangerous source of smoke that could damage your lungs during service. These pits of burning waste were used often by troops deployed in Afghanistan and Iraq, and they frequently contained hazardous chemicals and materials that release dangerous fumes when burned.

However, exposure to dust and chemical fumes is not limited to military service members deployed in other countries. Many military occupations have the potential to expose you to high enough levels of fine particulates and fumes to increase your risk for COPD.

For example, the US Department of Veterans Affairs recognizes that many military service members may be exposed to toxic vapors when using industrial solvents. These include solutions used for cleaning, stripping paint, de-greasing, and other common tasks military service members perform on a regular basis.

Asbestos is another major respiratory hazard that veterans in certain occupations may encounter. Those working in jobs related to mining, milling, insulation work, demolition, carpentry, and constructions are the most likely to have extensive asbestos exposure, which is known to cause COPD.

Many service members, both deployed and non-deployed, are also at risk of breathing dangerous amounts of fuel and exhaust fumes while they work. These fumes are widely recognized as a major source of occupational exposure to dangerous particulates and gases that can cause a variety of respiratory diseases, including COPD.

Exhaust fume exposure can happen at just about any military job that requires you to work with or near gas and diesel-fueled equipment, including vehicles and machinery. Equipment operators, technicians, engineers, and deployed service members, for instance, may be exposed to harmful fumes from the vehicles and machinery they use to do their jobs.

Increased Pressure to Smoke Tobacco

Without a doubt, smoking tobacco is the number one cause of COPD. Research shows that nearly 90% of people with COPD are current or former smokers, while only 10 percent have never smoked.

Unfortunately, cigarette smoking is an extremely common habit among people serving in the military. This is a problem that's been around since at least the early 1900's, when cigarettes were widely distributed to troops during WWI.

For many decades, cigarettes were an integral part of military culture; soldier care packages weren't considered complete if they didn't include a pack. Up until the mid-1970's, cigarettes were even a part of standard military rations, and in the 1980's, nearly 55 percent of military service members still smoked.

Smoking is such a deeply entrenched tradition in the military that it still persists to this day, despite the fact that aggressive public health efforts have succeeded in reducing smoking rates significantly among the general US population. The most recent research from 2011 shows that nearly 25% of active duty military personnel smoke (compared to 19 percent of civilians), and nearly forty percent of them didn't start smoking until after they enlisted.

The percentage of smokers is even higher among those serving in certain branches of the military. For instance, in 2011, 30.8 percent of service members in the marine corps and nearly 27 percent of those in the army smoked.

Even worse, a large number of people who begin smoking in the military will never actually quit, and many continue to smoke for decades after retiring from service. In fact, the most recent research from the CDC has found that a whopping 29.2 percent of veterans smoke.

That means that veterans have more than twice the smoking rate of the general US population, which has stayed relatively stable at 14 percent for many years. Since tobacco smoke is the number one cause of COPD, the prevalence of smoking among active military personnel and veterans is one of the major reasons for their higher rates of the disease.

Frequent exposure to secondhand smoke can also cause COPD, and it could be another contributing factor to veterans' higher-than-usual risk for the disease. After all, even service members who don't smoke have a high risk of regular second-hand smoke exposure simply from living and working around those who do.

Increased Risk From Deployment

A number of research studies have found that military veterans who have been deployed have higher rates of respiratory illnesses and diseases, including asthma and COPD. This is likely caused, at least partially, by the fact that service members are more likely to be exposed to environmental hazards like dust and smoke during employment.

For instance, one study showed military veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan were nearly three times as likely to have asthma and more than 75% more likely to have COPD. Experts believe that many of these respiratory conditions are the result of breathing in sand, dust, and burn pit fumes while deployed in the Middle East.

Research also suggests that your risk for respiratory problems may be higher the longer you are deployed. However, studies also show that deployed service members are more likely to smoke than those who have not been deployed.

Finally, some military veterans may be at risk for COPD and other respiratory problems due to their proximity to specific hazardous events. These include veterans of Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm who may have been exposed to dangerous levels of pollution from oil well fires.

Here is a list of some specific events recognized as respiratory hazards by the US Department of Veterans Affairs:

• The 2003 sulfur plant fire in Al Mishraq, Iraq
• The Atsugi waste incinerator in Atsugi, Japan that released dangerous fumes from burning medical industrial waste
• Exposure to Agent Orange during the Vietnam War
• Oil and gas well fires during the Gulf War (specifically operation desert shield and operation desert storm)
• Burn pits used at military sites
• Environmental exposure to sand, dust, and other particulate matter during deployment

What Can Military Service Members Do to Protect Their Lungs?

It is not uncommon for military service members to have to work in hazardous conditions. This includes working around dust, smoke, and exhaust fumes, as well as handling a variety of hazardous chemicals and materials.

All of these things can pose a risk to your lungs, but there are certain things you can do to significantly reduce that risk. Simply taking the right safety precautions and avoiding tobacco smoke, for example, can protect you from most of the major respiratory hazards you're likely to encounter during service.

Even veterans who are no longer in active service can protect their lungs by quitting smoking and continuing to avoid respiratory hazards throughout their lives. Early detection is also important, which is why it's vital for veterans with respiratory problems to get tested for COPD.

Follow Proper Safety Precautions and Procedures

When you're working in hazardous environments or with hazardous materials, you should do everything you can to protect yourself from both immediate and long-term health risks. In order to do that, you need to wear the proper safety equipment and follow every safety procedure carefully.

For example, you should always check chemical product labels for health warnings and instructions, and seek out other safety information before handling any chemical or material that could be hazardous. You should also know any applicable safety procedures and follow them to the letter every single time you do the task.

It's especially important to utilize all safety equipment that's available and appropriate, such as gloves, goggles, masks, and respirators, before you handle dangerous materials or work near a respiratory hazard. If your work site doesn't have the proper safety supplies, you should alert your supervisor to the problem and request the needed equipment.

However, you must make sure that you use the right kind of safety equipment for the specific hazard you face, otherwise you won't be protected. Many types of masks and respirators are only designed to protect you from a specific type of respiratory hazards, such as a certain size of ultra-fine particle or a type of chemical fume.

For more information on occupational respiratory hazards and what kind of safety equipment to use, refer to the OSHA technical manual on respiratory protection. You can view this on the US Department of Labor's website here.

It's particularly important to be safe with chemicals you use routinely, as repeated exposure is much more likely to damage your lungs than a one-time mistake. The temptation to cut corners and skip safety procedures also tends to be higher the more often you do a task; that's why maintaining your diligence is vital, especially the longer you work.

All of these safety rules also apply to veterans and civilians when working both at home and in the private sector. Always take the proper steps and wear the proper safety gear when you work around anything, including common household chemicals, that could harm your lungs.

Certain chemicals are more hazardous than others, and you should be familiar with all the dangerous materials and solutions you could be exposed to while you work. Be particularly cautious with chemicals and solvents like cleaning products, de-greasers, paint strippers, paint thinners, and other common chemical solutions.

Major respiratory hazards that require safety precautions:

• Asbestos
• Most chemical cleaning products
• Paint fumes
• Paint thinners and strippers
• Other chemical solvents
• Exhaust fumes
• Dust, chemical dusts, and other sources of fine, airborne particles

Specific chemicals deemed hazardous by the US Department of Veterans Affairs:

• Benzene and other aromatic hydrocarbons
• Vinyl chloride
• Perchlorate
• Perfluorooctane sulfonate
• Tetrachloroethylene
• Trichloroethylene

Quit Smoking, or Avoid Starting in the First Place!

Despite all of the respiratory hazards that military service members face, plain old tobacco smoke is still the primary cause of COPD among veterans. Because of this, avoiding or quitting smoking is the most important thing you can do to protect yourself from COPD.

Of course, this is easier said than done; smoking is pervasive among both service members and veterans, and it's extremely difficult to stop once you've started. Former smokers also have a higher risk of relapsing while serving in the military, and the risk is even higher for those that get deployed.

But even though serving in the military can make it especially challenging to avoid smoking and secondhand smoke, it's one of the most important things you can do to safeguard your health. If you are an active service member or veteran who already smokes, it's still never too late to quit!

Even though quitting is difficult, the good news is that you don't have to do it alone. There is a plethora of quit-smoking programs and services available to help you get the support you need to successfully quit.

These include phone hotlines, online support groups, educational guides, mobile support apps, and more. There are even a number of quit-smoking programs in place specifically for current military service members and veterans, some of which are only available through TRICARE and other Department of Defense programs.

Here is a list of some of the available services with links to help you get started:

• TRICARE beneficiaries can receive tobacco cessation medications and personal counseling from approved TRICARE providers.
• Call the CDC's quit smoking hotline to talk to a counselor trained to help smokers quit: 1-800-QUIT-NOW (800-784-8669)
• Veterans can utilize the Smoke Free Vet website to access a range of services, including: the “Stay Quit Coach” mobile application, online chat with quit smoking specialists, a mobile text message smoking cessation program, tools for creating your own quit-smoking plan, and online support groups for veterans who want to quit smoking.
• TRICARE-eligible beneficiaries can access the Department of Defense's “YouCanQuit2” program: Here you can access a variety of helpful quit-smoking resources online, including personalized advice from support coaches and a live chat system.
• Smoke Free Text Messaging Program: This program offers practical advice, encouragement, and motivation to quit smoking via text messages via a 6-8 week mobile smoking cessation program.
• Tips from Former Smokers Campaign: Learn, get advice, and be inspired by r

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.

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Palliative care is a type of treatment designed specifically to provide comfort and support to people with serious chronic diseases. Unfortunately, despite the many benefits it can offer COPD patients, palliative care is extremely under-utilized by people with COPD.

This is largely due to the fact that most people aren't familiar with palliative care options for people with chronic respiratory diseases. Even those that are, however, often don't realize when or if they are eligible for palliative care.

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Of course, it doesn't help that palliative care has gained a less-than-appealing reputation as a kind of hospice service for end-of-life care. To the contrary, palliative care is available for people with varying degrees of COPD severity; it's not just for those in the terminal stages of the disease.

In this post, we're going to do our best to bust that bad reputation and dispel the myths that discourage people with COPD and other chronic respiratory diseases from seeking palliative care. We'll also explore the specific ways that palliative care can help COPD patients and their loved ones better navigate the difficulties of living with chronic disease.

We'll even walk you through the process of getting into a palliative healthcare program and what you can expect when you start palliative care. We'll cover everything from how to know if you're eligible for palliative treatment, how to know if your insurance will cover it, and how to get in touch with palliative care specialists near you.

If you think that you or a loved one with COPD might benefit from palliative care, or you're just interested in learning more about what it has to offer, this post is meant for you. We believe that every person with COPD deserves top-notch treatment, and we hope that information in this guide will encourage more COPD patients to consider palliative treatment.

What is Palliative Care?

Palliative care is essentially a special branch of healthcare dedicated to helping people cope with the difficulties of living with severe and long-lasting illnesses. It includes a wide range of services that can be tailored to meet the specific needs and concerns of individual patients.

Here are some examples of common services and treatments offered through palliative care:

• Symptom relief (including both symptoms caused by the disease and side-effects of medications)
• Pain relief
• Emotional and psychological support
• Physical/occupational therapy

Palliative Care Versus Curative Care

Palliative care is often differentiated from “curative” care due to subtle—yet important—differences in how the two branches of medicine approach patient care. While curative care tends to focus on treating patients' underlying health problems (e.g. improving lung function and preventing exacerbations), palliative care focuses on improving patient comfort and quality of life (e.g. relieving chest pain and reducing breathlessness sensations).

Put another way, curative care practitioners are trained to balance the risks of medication and treatments with tangible health improvements (e.g. increased lung function and physical strength). Because of this, they are often more hesitant to prescribe treatments (e.g. oxygen therapy) when they aren't strictly necessary for the patient's health.

On the other hand, palliative care practitioners are specially trained to balance the risks of treatments with the patients' subjective well-being in addition to their physical health. This makes them better equipped to prescribe treatments that reduce pain and suffering resulting from complex, severe, and life-threatening illnesses.

That said, there is not exactly a hard line separating curative and palliative care. They are not mutually exclusive, for example, and there is often overlap between the treatments used in palliative and curative care.

Some people, particularly those those with chronic, lifelong diseases (like COPD), receive both curative and palliative care at the same time. Some only receive one or the other; for example, some patients with incurable illnesses (for which there is no known treatment) are solely treated with palliative care.

Some patients switch from curative to palliative care suddenly (e.g. after a major diagnosis) while others make a gradual transition from curative to palliative care. In the case of chronic diseases like COPD, this transition usually follows the progression of the illness, starting in the later stages of the disease.

Who Benefits from Palliative Care?

Palliative care is available for people with a wide range of health conditions, especially serious, chronic, and terminal diseases. Contrary to popular belief, however, you don't have to have a life-threatening condition to benefit; palliative care can help at any stage of a chronic illness, including the earlier stages of COPD and other chronic respiratory diseases.

Here's a list of some common health conditions that can be treated with palliative care:

• COPD and other chronic lung diseases (e.g. cystic fibrosis)
• Heart disease
• Both curable and incurable cancers
• Alzheimer's and dementia
• Multiple sclerosis
• AIDS

If you think you might be interested in palliative care, don't be afraid to bring it up with your doctor. It's never too early or too late to start the conversation and learn about palliative care options that can help you (whether now or in the future).

What Does Palliative Care Look Like?

Because palliative care is tailored to individual needs and circumstances, there is no one-size-fits-all approach. Palliative care can take many different forms and every person's experience receiving palliative treatment is unique.

Most commonly, palliative care is provided by hospitals, hospices, and long-term care facilities because these are the places that tend to treat patients with the most severe symptoms and advanced forms of disease. However, you can also get palliative care from outpatient facilities; in some cases, you can even get basic palliative treatments (such as pain relief) from your usual doctor and/or COPD treatment team.

Palliative Care for COPD

Now that you know what palliative care is and who it's meant for, let's take a closer look at what palliative care looks like specifically for people with chronic respiratory conditions like COPD.

In the following sections, we'll discuss how palliative care is administered to COPD patients, including specific treatments and benefits that people with COPD and other respiratory diseases can get from palliative care. This should give you a better idea of what to expect—and what you can look forward to—if and/or when you (or a loved one) decides to seek palliative care.

How Can COPD Patients Benefit from Palliative Care

Most of the palliative care treatments for COPD are aimed at relieving the burden of the physical and mental symptoms caused by their disease. The benefits of these treatments include:

• Reduced chest pain
• Reduced fatigue
• Reduced shortness of breath
• Improved physical comfort
• Improved sleep
• Improved mental health (e.g. reduced anxiety and depression)
• Improved overall quality of life

Here are some of common COPD symptoms that can be treated with palliative care:

• Chest pain
• Coughing
• Shortness of breath
• Poor appetite & difficulty eating
• Poor sleep
• Fatigue
• Anxiety
• Depression

Palliative care can also have a downstream effect that benefits your loved ones, especially those who have taken on caretaker roles. When your primary needs are being taken care of by palliative treatment, your family doesn't have to worry as much or shoulder as much of the care-giving burden, leaving more room to establish and strengthen normal friend and family bonds.

What Kinds of Palliative Care Treatments Are There for People with COPD?

Palliative care for COPD can include a wide variety of therapies and treatments. This includes treatments designed specifically for COPD and respiratory disease patients as well as generalized treatments designed to treat common symptoms (e.g. pain and fatigue) affecting people with chronic disease.

Generalized palliative care treatments that can help COPD patients include medications and physical therapies to relieve chest pain, muscle soreness, and physical fatigue. You can also get mental health support for psychological problems (e.g. health-related anxiety and depression), which are very common among people with COPD.

You can also get help with problems related to appetite and eating, which are common in people with advanced COPD. A palliative care team can, for example, get you working with dietary and nutrition specialists that can provide you with a tailored meal plan and personalized dietary advice.

COPD-specific palliative treatments include efforts to reduce the discomfort of breathing and shortness of breath with medications such as inhalers, opioid medications, and supplemental oxygen. It can also include physical therapy and respiratory disease education that teaches skills for managing symptoms and carrying out daily tasks.

There are also treatments for patients who struggle with shortness of breath while sleeping or otherwise have difficulty getting restful sleep. These include sleep-inducing medications and respiratory therapies (e.g. CPAP, BiPAP, and supplemental oxygen therapy) that help you breathe easier while you sleep.

Some treatments that palliative care can provide are not typically offered by doctors that practice curative COPD care. These include opiate medications, which studies show can significantly reduce shortness of breath in (some) severely breathless patients, especially those in the later stages of COPD.

Of course, opiates have many health risks and, ultimately, only treat diseases symptoms; they don't treat the underlying cause of the disease. This makes many curative healthcare practitioners hesitant to prescribe them in the absence of a compelling physical health need.

Palliative care specialists, on the other hand, are better equipped to evaluate the risks of opiates and other medications for patients compared to the subjective benefits (e.g. reduced patient suffering) even if they aren't exactly necessary to treat the disease. They are also specially trained to treat symptoms in the most complex and difficult situations, including in patients with multiple co-morbid diseases (a circumstance that is common among people with COPD).

In some cases, palliative care can offer COPD patients easier access to supplemental oxygen therapy, which is normally only prescribed to treat low blood oxygen levels. Patients receiving palliative care, however, are sometimes prescribed supplemental oxygen to relieve breathlessness, even if their blood oxygen levels aren't quite low enough to justify it on its own.

Myths and Misconceptions About Palliative Care

Palliative care is a commonly misunderstood healthcare service, which is likely due to the fact that relatively few people have had real-life experiences with palliative care. As a result, many people have false ideas about palliative treatment, including what it is, who it's meant for, and what kinds of symptoms it can treat.

These misconceptions discourage some people from seeking palliative care despite that they could benefit from it significantly. So, before we share some tips for how to get started with palliative treatment (the final part of this guide), let's take a minute to discuss—and bust—some of the most common myths about palliative care.

Palliative Care is Only for People Who Are Dying

Unfortunately, one of the main reasons why people with chronic diseases don't get palliative care is that they simply don't realize it's an option. Either they don't know that it exists, or they (mistakenly) assume that they're not sick enough; they think that palliative care is meant for other kinds of patients, not them.

That's because palliative care has a reputation of being just like hospice, a holdover from when that used to be what palliative care was for. As we mentioned earlier, palliative care originated as an end-of-life health service for terminally ill patients, and this is still a major function of palliative care today.

However, the scope of palliative care has expanded significantly over the years to include services for patients with a wide range of health conditions. As a result, palliative care is now available to people with less severe diseases, including people with any stage or severity of COPD.

Unfortunately, many people still make the false assumption that you have to be on your deathbed (or at least getting near it) to qualify for palliative care. Luckily, many healthcare professionals are aware of this problem and are working to raise awareness about the broad scope of palliative care.

Accepting Palliative Care Means I've Given Up

Some patients are afraid to accept palliative care (or even downright refuse it) because they're afraid of what it might mean. For some people, starting palliative care feels like they're losing or giving up something, or even giving in to their disease.

But the truth is that accepting help when you need it isn't a weakness, nor is it an admission of defeat. In fact, it's the farthest thing from it; it means that you're still willing to fight for your own well-being, that you still have hope your future and maintaining a good quality of life.

Of course, it can still be very scary to face the reality of living with a chronic illness, which is something you just can't avoid in palliative care. But ignoring it won't change reality or make anything better—it will only make things worse by discouraging you from getting the help and support that could allow you to live a happier, more comfortable life with COPD.

Palliative Care is Useless

Hopefully we've done enough so far to convince you that palliative care isn't useless, but it remains a common worry among those that are hesitant to accept palliative care. They worry that it's a waste of time, that it won't be able to help them, or that it's not worth the extra effort and expense.

Of course, while not everyone who gets palliative care will see major benefits, you shouldn't assume that it won't work without at least figuring out if it's true. As we've discussed already, palliative care can provide all kinds of worthwhile benefits to respiratory disease patients, ranging from improved breathing symptoms to increased appetite and more restful sleep.

Additionally, what we've talked about so far is far from comprehensive; palliative care can provide benefits for people dealing with all kinds of different symptoms, ailments, and diseases that we haven't mentioned in this guide. In fact, palliative care is designed to provide solutions for uncommon and difficult-to-manage symptoms which haven't (or can't) be adequately addressed by curative care.

No matter what symptoms or ailments you're suffering from, it's worth looking into whether or not they can be treated with palliative care. You never know until you try; worst case scenario, nothing changes. But in the best case scenario, you could get some real, meaningful relief.

How to Get Palliative Care for COPD and Other Chronic Respiratory Diseases

Getting palliative care is not always a straightforward process. It can be very difficult for people—especially those with chronic illnesses like COPD—to know when they need palliative treatment. And, even when you do, it's not always clear how to access that kind of care.

So, in these final sections, we'd like to take a closer look at what it takes to get palliative treatment for COPD. We'll discuss how to get process started, how to manage the costs of treatment, and everything else you need to know about how to secure palliative care for yourself or a loved one with COPD.

Talk to Your Doctor

If you are interested in palliative care, the first step is to talk to your doctor and/or your COPD treatment team to figure out when and if palliative care is appropriate. As we discussed earlier in this guide, the answers to those questions are different for every patient and depend on each individuals' circumstances and needs.

Unfortunately, there's no easy way to pinpoint an exact time in the course of COPD treatment when you should begin palliative care. That's why it's up to you and your COPD treatment team to figure out what's right for you.

As one research review on palliative care for COPD put it, “there is often no clearly identifiable point at which [COPD] management changes from active supportive therapy to palliative care, and it's usually a matter of experienced clinical judgment.” This is why it's important to discuss future treatment options with your COPD treatment team early on and throughout the course of your COPD care.

Clear and open communication with your treatment team is key for ensuring that they are aware of—and taking care of—all your healthcare needs. They will be an integral part of the process when and if you begin palliative treatment, so don't be afraid to communicate with your doctor(s) about where your treatment is headed and when you should start thinking about palliative care.

Get in Touch with a Palliative Care Specialist

If you are a COPD patient that only needs basic palliative treatment, your regular doctor and/or treatment team might administer those treatments on their own. In fact, many COPD patients receiving standard COPD care are receiving some kind of palliative treatment whether or not it's explicitly referred to as “palliative care.”

In cases where you need more extensive palliative support, your doctor might refer you to a palliative care specialist. If you need help, your doctor can get you in touch with palliative care services in your area that can offer the kinds of services you need.

You can also inquire about palliative care services anytime you are hospitalized or receiving treatment in an assisted living facility. You can also locate palliative care specialists near you on your own through your insurance provider's directory or by searching your city, state, or zip code in the web directory at Get Palliative Care.

Securing Insurance Coverage for Palliative Care

Unfortunately, we can't talk about the realities of accessing palliative care in America without also discussing the financial costs. Just like every kind of healthcare, palliative care can get expensive, and the vast majority of people don't have the up-front cash to handle major medical expenses on their own.

Because of this, many people's ability to get palliative care depends on whether or not their health insurance will cover the cost. And because health insurance benefits vary widely between different plans and providers (even Medicare plans can vary state by state), there's no way to know for sure what your insurance provider will cover without looking at your personal benefit plan.

Fortunately, most medicare and private insurance plans cover at least some palliative care services; unfortunately, not everyone qualifies for coverage. Medicare, for example, usually only covers palliative care for terminally ill patients who are nearing end of life and are no longer receiving curative care.

Some private insurance plans have broader criteria and will approve palliative treatment for patients in less severe circumstances. It all depends on your particular benefit plan, which is why it's vital to review all of your insurance plan's rules, benefits, and exceptions before starting palliative care.

If you are ever unsure about whether a particular healthcare service (palliative care or otherwise) is covered by your insurance, calling your health insurance representative directly is the best way to find out. The closer you work with your insurance company to cover all your bases, the less likely you are to get blindsided by surprise bills, claim rejections, and out-of-network fees.

Conclusion

Whether you're considering