Things That Help Us Live Better

We are blessed to live in a time when we have access to many things to help people live better with diseases like COPD.

Better living with COPD

Here are some of the things I can think of that help us:

Better medicine

Medicine has improved immensely in the past 20 years. We have many more options to try in our quest to gain better control over COPD and other health concerns.

Not only that, but most medicines we take today only need to be taken once or twice daily. This makes it so much easier to stay compliant with our treatment regimen.

I usually keep my medicine in a basket next to the kitchen sink. I see it as making breakfast and taking all my AM medicines at once.

Then, as I’m preparing my bedtime snack, I see the medicine basket again. This reminds me to take my bedtime medicines. This is much nicer than 20 years ago when many of my medicines had to be taken every 4 hours and sometimes every 3 hours.

Better machines

Some people in this community benefit from using machines such as CPAP and BiPAP. These are machines that apply pressure to our breaths as we are sleeping.

They help assure our breathing stays deep enough as we sleep, and they help to keep our airways open and our oxygen levels safe while sleeping. This bodes well for us, allowing us to feel better during the daytime.

Researchers, scientists, pharmaceuticals

Researchers, pharmacists, and pharmaceuticals are working overtime to learn more about our disease. As they continue their quest, they make new discoveries.

Many of these discoveries lead to better wisdom for doctors to help us feel better. They also lead to better treatments for helping us manage our disease on a day-to-day basis.

COPD guidelines

Researchers have shared their wisdom with doctors. Together they have created guidelines to guide doctors in treating you.

As they learn more, they update these guidelines and further educate physicians on how best to utilize them. This guideline strategy has gone a long way to helping many of us live better and longer despite our diseases.

Doctor’s wisdom about COPD

Doctors today are constantly being educated on our disease and how best to diagnose, manage, and treat it. This wisdom is spearheaded not only by their research and education but with the aid of the various COPD guidelines, such as those mentioned above.

Of course, not only do we have access to primary care doctors, but we also have access to specialists s, such as pulmonologists.

Pharmacists

In the past, the main job of the pharmacist was to fill our prescriptions. Today, not only do they do that, but they also educate us about the medicines we are taking.

They visit us annually to answer our medicinal questions or concerns. Whenever you have a question about your medicines (such as your inhalers not working right), a pharmacist is always available to help you and perhaps get you a replacement inhaler.

These are some of the resources we have access to in order to help us live better lives. I am sure this list only touches the surface.

Perhaps you can add to this list in the comments below.