COPD: WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW ABOUT IT

COPD stands for Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease. As its name suggests, COPD is chronic, and can last over a lifetime. There is no cure to this disease, and only treatment related to the symptoms can help. This is what makes COPD so dangerous, because once you contract it; you will have it for life. The principle reason about people not knowing much about this disease is because there is a major lack of awareness about COPD within the common people. For this reason, many people ignore the symptoms or participate in activities and harmful practices that have a good chance of them getting the disease. As the name suggests, this disease affects the lungs, and causes obstructive breathing problems. Bronchitis and Emphysema are common symptoms. In the recent years, there have been a number of new drugs for COPD, which have been approved by the medical council of India. Though the treatment for COPD patients has become easier during the last few medical years, the common population does not have much information about COPD. These are some of the reasons by which COPD is caused.

1.)  Smoking: In today’s world, a lot of people smoke. Be it cigarettes, cigars, beedis, or hookah, tobacco smoke constitutes the major reason why people suffer from COPD. If you are a regular smoker, you might get COPD later in life.

2.)  Biomass fuel exposure: India is a country of its villages. Even though many villages are becoming modernized and a number of facilities are being provided to them, there are still many places which take the use of conventional chulhas to go about their daily business like cooking food or heating up water. The smoke from these is very harmful to the lungs of the people in the vicinity of it, and can ultimately lead to COPD.

3.)  Industrial pollution: With the advent of the industrial revolution in the world, we have never looked back, and new industries are coming up every day. Exposure to pollution from these industries is another major cause of COPD.

4.)  Vehicular emissions: Vehicles today still run on petrol and diesel as their major source of energy. Unfortunately, this releases a lot of toxins in the air. These toxins have a detrimental effect on the health of your lungs, and can cause several severe chronic problems.

5.)  Lack of awareness: Even though doctors are on the lookout for the disease because of the sheer volume of people affected by it, the fact remains that not many people know about COPD. Leading a fast, unhealthy lifestyle full of smoking, work, and pollution has caused a large number of people to contract this disease. The best way to go about this is to realize that you need to know as much as you can about this disease before you contract it, as it is not curable.

Besides all this, many people who eventually are diagnosed with the disease only come to the doctor when their symptoms become unbearable. This causes lack of treatment options. Many people who get early symptoms brush them off as something minor, and do not take the option of getting the disease diagnosed early, which would give them more treatment options and make life easier. If you or someone you know has symptoms that sign towards COPD, get checked by a doctor right away. There is a wide range of new treatment for COPD patients, and COPD management guidelines have greatly improved within the past few years. 

 

Category: