Sick Lungs Don’t Show Adapted from a 1998 EFFORTS brochure by Edna Fiore I may not look sick, but … I have Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD.) What is COPD? It includes such illnesses as emphysema, chronic bronchitis and sometimes asthma. It is primarily characterized by extreme shortness of breath. Living with COPD…
Fibrosis File Help Is on the Way NeoPharm, Inc. has filed an investigational new drug application with the FDA for the treatment of Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF). The company plans to start a Phase I clinical study in which the drug, now called IL13-PE, will be administered as an aerosol. NeoPharm expects to conduct the…
Flu News After America returned to work, reported cases of H1N1 flu increased the week after Christmas. President Obama issued a proclamation asking all Americans who have not already done so to get vaccinated against the flu. The fears over adverse side effects of the H1N1 vaccine have not materialized. With an estimated 136 million…
November Is National COPD Awareness Month Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease is the fourth leading cause of death in the United States. The National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute tells us the disease kills more than 120,000 Americans each year–that’s one death every four minutes–and causes serious, long term disability. The number of people…
Internet Sources for Information about COPD For those of you who use a computer, RT magazine recently listed these internet sites as sources for people with chronic lung disease to learn about their disease. www.goldcopd.com (Global Initiative for Chronic Obstructive Lung Disease) The GOLD guidelines outline the recommended diag- nosis, classification and treatments for…
Seasonal Thoughts Years ago, the late Jim Phillips was part of a group called the Wheezenpuffs, who wrote and performed songs and poems for people with COPD. During the holiday season, we like to look back and smile at his work, sent to us by Kathleen Sullivan of the ALA of San Diego,…
Respiratory News The American College of Chest Physicians recently held their annual meeting in San Diego. They have an excellent web site for COPD information in plain language at http://copd.acponline.org. Some of the studies that were presented at the convention include: A retrospective study showed anemia (low hemoglobin levels) is a significant comorbidity…
Product Corner Gerry Chagnon, Director of Pulmonary, Vascular & Diagnostics at Orange Park Medical Center in Florida, recently told us of a new system his hospital is using to diagnose lung cancer as quickly as possible. The technology, called the inReach™ System, by super Dimension, provides navigation and guidance to distant regions of…
Traveling Tales Jeri Free Styles on a Jet Ski Jeri Mondloch, wearing oxygen on her back and using OxyView™ glasses, was walking down the beach in Bermuda and found a handsome young man on a jet ski. She hopped on the back and hung on while going 30 miles per hour over the water.…
Music Doth Soothe the Savage Beast! Really! Three years ago, Mary Jane Gormley, a lady with COPD, and Larry Vesely, a respiratory therapist, developed a program they call “Harmonicas for Health” for their Bloomington, Indiana hospital. They have now published their program, which they presented at an international conference of the Society for…