A GP has urged people to be wary of four telltale symptoms of a common condition thought to affect more than one million people in the UK. Speaking on BBC’s This Morning, Doctor Veena Babu, shared more about chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
COPD refers to a group of lung conditions that cause breathing difficulties. This can include issues such as emphysema and chronic bronchitis.
There is no cure for COPD and without treatment the breathing problems tend to get gradually worse over time and can limit your normal activities.
According to Dr Veena Babu, COPD affects “a lot” of middle aged adults. It is also most common among smokers or former smokers.
“90 percent is thought to be down to smoking,” she said. “There are some other causes like exposure to toxic fumes or dust pollution. A small proportion is also genetically passed down, but not as much, but smoking is the big one there.”
If you are a smoker it is therefore easy to mistake the symptoms for side effects of the habit.
But Dr Veena urged people to seek medical help if they notice certain symptoms.
“So if you’ve been a long-term smoker, there are four things to really think about,” she said.
These include if you:
- Get short of breath, especially when you’re doing activity
- Have a cough that’s not going away
- Have a lot of thick phlegm being produced
- Have persistent wheezing or recurrent chest infections.
She especially encouraged people who are 35 and have smoked “for a long time” with these symptoms to speak to their GP.
When you go to your doctor they might want to conduct some tests. Dr Veena said: “You’ll be referred for something called a lung function test, which is a simple test where you breathe into a tube before and after taking a special medicine and that result will tell us, could you have COPD or not? It’s as simple as that.”
There are also some symptoms that should prompt a more urgent visit to the doctor.
She continued: “Another time you should go urgently to see a doctor, actually, is if the phlegm changes colour. So COPD patients may produce a lot of phlegm, a lot of coughing throughout the day.
“Now if suddenly that phlegm turns dark green, dark brown, or if there’s blood in it, that’s not something you should sit on at all.”
While there is no cure, Dr Veena said seeking help will ensure you get the treatment you need.
She added: “There is no cure, but you can treat it and manage it. So, depending on the severity of your condition, it could be medication, which is inhalers, tablets, it could be oxygen therapy, it could be rehabilitation therapy.”
In more extreme cases, the NHS says some people will need surgery or a lung transplant.
The National Institute for Health and Care Research is currently in need of volunteers for 49 COPD studies. To find out more or to sign up, visit bepartofresearch.nihr.ac.uk.