I was diagnosed with mild COPD a few years ago. The doctor said 'Here's a Rx for an inhaler. Use it when you need to." That's it. When I asked what caused it, 'Well you used to smoke so most likely that's why'. I feel like there should be more. After dealing with this for this time with little to no assistance to teach me about it, I'm going to request to see a pulmonologist cause I wonder if there are treatments for this. I understand it isn't curable.
This past Sunday I had my wife take me to the ER with a really bad chest cold that was causing me to cough so hard I'd pass out. My wife said my eyes would roll up and my face turn almost purple. My feet shake and hands move without purpose. As awareness comes back I'm very confused about what is happening, where I am. Everything visually is all stars. After a few seconds I regain enough to understand what happened.
This also happened last winter while vacationing in Texas for a month. Then the diagnosis was pneumonia. This year they said the ct-scan did not show pneumonia but the Dr was surprised as he thought it would after listening to me breath.
Are these normal reactions to COPD? Sometimes just bending over to tie my shoes leaves me panting ridiculously. They do EKG's on my heart and it shows all is fine. Stress tests, the same. My O2 levels always show 94-96. I'm excited to have found this website and hope to begin learning things about COPD, what can be done to help or maybe when I should be looking for more answers. Thank you for listening .