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Changes we had to do

I already wrote quite a bit about my story and my wonderful partner and husband, but today I will talk about our changes that made a very big difference in my daily COPD life.

Lifestyle changes we made to help manage COPD

1: We removed all carpeting in the house, reducing dust as we move around.

2: We added throws on the floor where needed most and rubber matts were I stand when I am cooking.

3: We installed a second hand treadmill in our living room, (our home is a 24 feet by 14 feet which makes it kind of small, which suits us fine since we are independent seniors.) 71/77. In the best health possible and the secret to that for us is walk, walk and walk, we also joined a pulmonary center/classes at the written order of my pulmonary Dr. Every other day we go, awesome. We meet nice people who suffer from the same ailment I do.

Making adjustments in movement and nutrition

It also is a good excuse to go out of the house. If it is raining we use the treadmill, people are shocked to see our machine in the living room but that is the only place we could find for it plus we do not like to be separated, this way we keep an eye on each other. My husband also purchased a kind of a poor relative machine to a power plate machine one that works just as good as the power machine itself but much, much cheaper!... Apparently it helps keep your bones strong and it is safe, you can hold on to the handles on each side, of course you have to put it together, thank God for my husband for I would not know where to begin.

We eat healthy and try to have organic as often as we can afford, and take very healthy organic supplements, as all this expense obviously drains any possible fun things to do out, we are content to prepare things like tuna fish salad (wild caught with a mixture of organic condiment and vegetables) and go to a nice public park and eat, walk in the sun and enjoy watching kids play.

Managing different weather triggers

Lately we had a very bad fire in CA, still going and had to stay in the house (day six) with all windows shut, so another sacrifice financial burden was to invest in a electric heater, (gas heaters burn oxygen which we were avoiding to use as much as we possibly can, when I am cooking) under those circumstances, since it is cold I make lots of different soups at a time, we have a ceiling fun in the kitchen which helps. Also we had to purchase a Hepa machine and a humidifier to protect my sinuses and throat.

It took time to make adjustments

I have to add that it took at least seven years to achieve all that, but we wrote down our priorities and started with what we thought would be the most important issue. It was hard for everything was important but different people's priority list can be also different than ours. I hope our adjustments mentioned in here will help. Good Luck and God bless.

PS: There will be many days where discouragement and depression show their ugly face but you have got to talk yourself out of it and be strong with a lot of faith and prayers. We are not fanatic religious people but we do believe in a higher authority, it gives us strength and joy to know that we are watched and loved.

This article represents the opinions, thoughts, and experiences of the author; none of this content has been paid for by any advertiser. The COPD.net team does not recommend or endorse any products or treatments discussed herein. Learn more about how we maintain editorial integrity here.

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