Awareness Month

August is Immunization Awareness Month – How Immunizations Help COPD

Immunization Awareness Month

Keeping your Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease under control is the first step in keeping you healthy. You should be doing anything you can to prevent exacerbations, including doing specific lung exercises, quitting smoking, taking your prescribed oxygen therapy and medication as directed, as well as getting the immunizations that will help keep you healthy.

If someone you know gets a cold or the flu, who doesn’t have COPD, they will be ill for about a week or two, and get better. If you were to come down with the flu, it can spell disaster and lead to an exacerbation. Getting the proper immunizations for things like influenza and pneumonia are important and will make a huge difference in your health throughout the year, and through the cold and flu season.

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Scott Ridl

National Fitness and Sports Month – Physical Activity and COPD

National Fitness and Sports Month

May has been declared National Fitness and Sports Month to try to educate Americans on how they can help prevent diseases and general bad health by getting the physical activity they need. According to Fitness.gov and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), an adult should be getting around 150 minutes of exercise per week.

Of course, these 150 minutes can be broke up into smaller amounts of time each day – that divides out to 30 minutes 5 days a week, or about 22 minutes 7 days a week. If you can’t reach 30 or 22 minutes every day that you exercise, but you dedicate at least 15 minutes a day, this will still make a difference on your general health. A combination of cardio and strength exercise is recommended, to cover your circulatory and respiratory systems, as well as your bone and muscles strength and balance.

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Scott Ridl

March is Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Month – How Oxygen Therapy Can Help

March is National Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Awareness Month

Having Chronic Fatigue syndrome means being excessively tired for more than 6 months at a time, and having to deal with pain such as joint pains and headaches. Imagine not being able to get through a whole day of work or school because you simple can’t keep your eyes open, not matter how much sleep you get each night. It’s like having a severe case of the flu that never ends, or never getting any sleep for two or three nights in a row.

If you have been diagnosed with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, you don’t have to imagine this, but you are looking for a way to get through a regular day. Besides the medications that you might have to take, you can most likely benefit from one hour of oxygen therapy each day. Talk to your doctor to see if he or she thinks you should give oxygen therapy a try.

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Scott Ridl

Things to Start During National Heart Month

Things to Start During National Heart Month

February is National Heart Month, and as you know, whatever happens to your lungs has a long term and short term effect on your ticker. All of the systems in your body work together (the endocrine system, immune system, nervous system, etc.) and all depend on each other to keep your body working and balanced, but your heart depends on your lungs to bring in the oxygen – a very important job. If your lungs aren’t doing their job, everything else starts to suffer very quickly.

During National Heart Month, the American Heart Association works to raise awareness about heart disease, which is the number one killer of women. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, it’s the leading cause of death or all types of cancer.

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Scott Ridl