Your Questions Answered

The Foundation hosted a webinar called Living well with COPD on World COPD Day, 16 November. We had three expert speakers: Dr James Fingleton (respiratory physician and Foundation Medical Director), Nicola Corna (nurse practitioner) and Pauline Mohi, who has lived with COPD for the past 11 years. Here are a few of the questions asked by attendees with edited answers from our panel.

What is the top advice you would give for people to live well with COPD?

Pauline: For me it is to do the Better Breathing (Pulmonary Rehabilitation) courses, which are available all-around New Zealand and when you really progress with that, keep it up by joining an exercise and coffee group. You’re joining with likeminded people. You share your experiences and learn from each other. It not only helps your physical health, it helps your mental health as well.

Nicola: Learn a bit more about your condition, and how it affects you. If you’re smoking, stop and kick the guilt in the teeth. It’s a waste of time and energy. Get exercising, join a local Better Breathing programme and meet people in a similar position to you because you’ll find that more than anything else it is just really supportive and encouraging.

James: From a medication point of view, don’t be afraid to ask us how to use an inhaler. There are different inhalers, so if you’re finding the inhaler fiddly, talk to your health practitioner about if there is one that could work better for you. Feel free to bring in a list of questions when you visit us, so we can talk about what you want to know.

How do you get an accurate diagnosis with COPD?

James: You make the diagnosis with COPD with a clinician taking a history, doing an examination and then confirming the diagnosis with breathing tests. We need to do the breathing tests to confirm what is going on because there are other lung conditions that have some of the same symptoms but cause different patterns on the breathing test.

How long can you live with COPD?

James: People can live to a ripe old age with COPD. The important thing is that we try and stop or slow any decline. So that might mean if someone is smoking, we support them to stop smoking. This can be hugely challenging but makes a real difference to how fast the lungs get worse, and likewise removing any exposure to industrial causes of COPD. Then it’s about keeping people healthy as much as possible both with medications and with exercise. Those things set people up to live well with COPD, even though the condition can be life-changing.

What type of exercise is good for COPD?

Nicola: Any! Just keep moving. On the Foundation website there is a section with a list of available Pulmonary Rehabilitation classes throughout New Zealand. You can contact them or ask to be referred to them, to find out more about what exercise you should be doing.

Pauline: Also, I would say that if you stop exercising, boy do you notice it and it is so hard to bring yourself up to that point again. It’s about simply keeping up that exercise all the time. It’s amazing what it a difference it makes.

How do you deal with the anxiety that comes with COPD?

Nicola: It comes down to understanding what’s happening in your lungs and having the knowledge and the confidence that you know what to do, to be OK. If you have the confidence to do that it will decrease your anxiety dramatically. Learning to manage your breathlessness, will help you deal with your anxiety.

The full webinar can be viewed at: www.asthmafoundation.org.nz/news-events/2022/worldcopd-day-webinar-living-well-with-copd

Check out the list of Pulmonary Rehabilitation (Better Breathing) classes available around New Zealand here:

www.asthmafoundation.org.nz/about-us/ support-groups