I’ve joined the forum today and just saying hello and looking forward to reading your stories/learning more about this dreaded illness
I’ve got stage 3 COPD which was diagnosed in Nov 2018 and aswell as having Asthma since childhood, life ad breathing gave become a bit of a struggle these last few years, I smoked for over forty years but woke up with a collapsed lung in on 5th Jan 2021 and after being discharged from hospital a couple days later I haven’t smoked since which hasn’t been as hard as I thought, mainly because the thought of wanting to stay alive longer outweighed the want of a smoke.
Feel free to ask me any questions if you like and I look forward to getting involved in the forum
Cheers…
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Catman55
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Yes I was fortunate enough to do some face to face classes in Nov 2022 but my health was quite deteriorating back then that I never completed the last 2 classes out of a block of 6 classes. I currently do a lot of pulmonary rehab exercises from YouTube videos though and general exercise which has helped massively.
I drink a lot of different herbal teas ( not twinnings or pukka) but other brands which really make a difference with my breathing becoming easier and also hemp tea at night and it really helps with my sleep
Yes I’ve been reading some other posts and people here seem very supportive and informative also 👍
Welcome to you Catman, good to meet you. I’m carer for my husband who was diagnosed with COPD in 2010. He had also smoked for many years but had given up 9 years before his diagnosis. He has asthma, heart disease and chronic back problems and sometimes life is a slog but we have each other which is great.
Good to meet you too, sorry to hear your husband has all those diagnosis but I’m sure you give him lots of strength caring for him as it must be very painful for him at times..and you sound very positive too. that’s such a long time to stop smoking before he was diagnosed with COPD but well done on him for staying off the cigs all those years beforehand..yes indeed, cheers Sassy x
Welcome to you Catman. I hope that as your lungs recover you'll feel better and perhaps improve on level 3. People with copd talk of not worrying about numbers it's how you feel. Also they say quality of life (lungs too) can improve with with the right exercise, healthy diet, healthy weight, avoiding pollution and people with coughs, colds, flu, covid etc. as well as having regular flu & covid vaccinations. There's even a pneumonia vaccination.
Thanks for that and for the info also and yes indeed you’re right it is about it’s how you feel as there are days I feel really good and others im feel quite bad but I’m quite enjoying finding out new ways of looking after meself and trying new foods etc..
hi and welcome catman, I too had a collapsed lung last September and diagnosed with emphysema in October. This is a lovely group and everyone is so friendly and supportive
Sorry to hear that… did they have to drain your lung or did it improve on its own after a while ?… it painful and very scary also ( I had to go into the resuscitation department to be monitored) but they said it didn’t need to be drained and the lung improved after a couple weeks
Hope you’re feeling a bit better now and my hospital consultant said my COPD is more on the emphysema side than the chronic bronchitis and I drink a lot of herbal teas that have a variety ginger, lemon or peppermint in which have really helped with my breathing and I’m not wheezing as much as I used to
I had to have it drained. I’m terrified of needles and the biggest baby ever so I wasn’t the easy patient lol. They nearly didn’t do it but in the end after a very patient and understanding husband and doctor they managed to do the procedure. At this time I wasn’t aware that I had emphysema and was told trauma can cause it. I obviously stopped smoking but started again shortly after my cat scan but then got the copy of my results that they sent my doctor and stopped smoking that day. I was terrified and googled stuff in the letter and thought I’d got a couple of years to live. Then I found this forum and have got a new lease of life.
Yeah I’m with you on the needles part, when the doctor explained what the draining precedure may be I’m glad I didn’t need it done as it sounded quite a painful procedure, that’s good it went ok and well done for stopping smoking too.
I was the same regarding Google but over the last year I found so many good sites on how to look after my health and food/cooking tips and on YouTube also… where would we be in life if it wasn’t for the internet I say..
Well after all the fuss it wasn’t that bad apart from I had to stay still as they have to place the tube Inbetween the ribs. The pain came after lol. I think my lung had totally collapsed as I had been struggling to breathe for over a week, they thought it was chest infection then a blood clot. I can laugh about it now but it was so scary. Did they warn you that it can happen again lol
Sounds like you went through the mill with it and worse than mine as I wasn’t in to much pain after the discharged me with some painkillers. I think they can tell how bad it is by the size of the air sac in the lung so sounds like I got away lightly lol.
Yeah they did tell me it can happen again at anytime so to look after myself by not smoking, no heavy lifting or bending over to much as that can strain the intercostal muscles around the thorax wall which can lead to a collapsed lung and such things as no unhealthy eating/drinking, unhealthy living etc, basically all the things that ain’t good for us lol
Hello Catman👍Thank you first of all for writing such an interesting post👍 Found some of your answers interesting, like herbal teas and not having spicy food, pepper and Sodium!
I had a heart attack 2019 and my heart function has decreased a little! Normally I do exercise at home, walk a bit into town etc but as I am retired now, the cost of living really started to bite beginning of January and it's more difficult to do the things I love!
I do drink herbal teas, I love coffe also, but using more decaffeinated coffee now! I suppose I have to get a grip, when reading some comments, especially with certain things I still hold onto, change some of my diet and some of my lifestyle! Walking is often a hurdle I have to overcome as I have vascular problems in both legs! After 30 mins walking my legs ache but then they feel better somehow! Can't wait for Spring Catman 👌🌲🌳🌻🌼🪻I have seen snowdrops and hyacinths in my little garden and Helliborus white and dark burgundy coming out! Sign the seasons change!
I can't keep pets as I am renting and even though I love dogs and cats, they make you more house bound and I couldn't afford a pet either! Vet bills and food!
But My daughter has a cat called Simba + 2 dogs, Luna + Lottie !
My third youngest Son got a cat called Lady Tom 😁 and well my youngest son got a dog called Bertie and a cat called Siggie! My eldest Son doesn't have any pets!
But when I can visit it's nice to see them and have therapy 👌😁🤣🤣🤣🐶🐱🐶🐱🐱
I live on my own and my children and their families live in Teeside and the Midlands!
Are you still working Catman? As I don't like retirement at all!
Sorry to hear that but glad you’re doing ok now and good you get out and about.. life can still be worth living and we don’t have to give up everything we enjoy, we just need to make adjustments from how we use to live and to be honest with you even though i have COPD I look after my health and myself much better now then before my diagnosis so it goes t gave to be all bad
That’s lovely about your family and so cool about the. cats also :-)x
Nah I don’t work no more as I used to be a support worker in a homeless peoples charity and it was a very demanding job so I resigned due to Ill health in 2022 and haven’t worked since but life is nice not having to get up at 5am every morning lol.
Yeah I like my coffee also, I buy the latte sachets and love a couple of mugs of them a day but Yorkshire teas me favourite over all the herbal etc..
Yeah spring will be here soon and hoping for a mild summer this year ?
Yes, I still love my coffee throughout the day but I don't drink filter coffee any more! It's too strong! I bought Aldi Nescafé granules recently and it tastes same as Kenco actually 👌So wished my family lived closer! It's hard being on your own especially now!
Going to look for a part-time job! Money is tight and Council tax will go up 9% in April here in North Yorkshire! Nightmare this is for me and many other low-income earners and Pensioners etc!
I have hardly got any finances spare!
Best back to work and earn money ! Hope I find something not too strenuous soon Catman 👍
A work colleague of mine had a puncturerd lung 2022 in the autumn and he had to stay off work for 3 months! I was a Kitchen porter and lifting heavy he wasn't allowed! Eventually he left and found a less strenuous job!
I find when I walk fast despite the uncomfortable pulling in my left leg I get a little out of breath quite often! But I think it's because of my heart Catman 👌
Anyway must admit feeling tired tonight, as had bloods taken this afternoon and walked a bit through town and collected my meds!
God bless! Enjoy your evening please 👌🥰
Next time I visit my daughter I take some photos of her pets Catman 👌😁
Sounds lovely and you take care of yourself snowdrop
what part of North Yorkshire are you ?.. I love it up there as used to visit friends in York (Bishopsthorpe) a few year ago, used to love going out to Witney in the summertime.. I also visited a lovely peaceful place called Fountains Abbey as I’m sure you’ve heard of it or been there ?… we even went to the set of Heartbeat one day in Pickering, that was a good laugh.
I’m in London (born and bred here) so I used to like getting away from the city life and going up to the peace and quiet of the North Yorkshire countrysides but I havent been up there since 2017.
Ok that would be nice and look after yourself as I know it’s not easy on your own with an illness so take care.
Woke up so writing quickly, I live a few miles away from Harrogate 👍 and not too far from Fountains Abbey!
I couldn't live in big cities, the traffic is horrendous and driving a nightmare! I prefer more country towns! Can handle those 🤔😂
Outside London you can find interesting places to go and you are not too to far from the seaside down there either Catman 👍
Anyway I find we have cleaner air, that doesn't mean we are safe from pollution!
The River Ouse in York has been polluted just recently by wastewater overflow due to flooding!
You meant Whitby, Catman ❓
I drove once over the Moors back home 👍 wouldn't drive it during autumn/winter/early Spring time! The road between the coast and Pickering is quite like a rollercoaster and kinda isolated! I was glad to be near Pickering on my way home again!
Heartbeat used to watch that too 👍
Doing policing on the Yorkshire Moors can be a difficult job!
Anyway back to sleep for me now Catman! God bless 🥰🌜✨😴
Hi there Catman, i joined this group a few months ago - its a lovely group and everyone helpful and sharing info and useful tips. You can always get answers and suggestions and support here which is great. Ive had asthma for about 40years but it started to play up over the last couple of years. Im interested in what herbal teas you find helpful, I bought some mullein tea but havnt tried it yet. Is that one familiar to you? it says to consult your doctor on the box, haha fat chance and i dont think they would know about it really. Anyway - welcome 😀
Yes indeed it has been very welcoming to me and I’ve already got lots of tips of people replying to me and reading other various posts also
Yeah Asthma is such a nightmare .. it ruined my childhood growing up lol .. but hope you are coping with it ok
To be honest I’ve only just started drinking herbal tea since latenov a couple of months ago so I haven’t heard of muller in yet but the ones I’m using are called Good Earth and I brought the plant based ones (Lemon, Tumeric and Ginger flavour and also the Morrocan Mint flavour one also) they have other flavours also but most others are fruit flavours.. I prefer plant based teas, I brought them from my local supermarket, you know the one with the orange letters that start and begging with an S , not sure if I’m allowed to advertise here but I’ll soon find out lol… I also drink hemp tea and went to Holland and Barrett and brought some CBD hemp tea which really helped me to breathe so much easier… I’m not saying it will work for anyone else as I’m not giving advice nor am I a medical professional lol… but it works really well for me that I have a cup every night before bed and another cup throughout the day at some point it really helped me sleep ok and I wasn’t coughing at all nor coughing up mucus..
I tell you what helps my breathing also is I don’t eat food straight from the fridge, I leave it for 5-10 minutes to get to room temperature as when I was eating straight from the fridge I would get very wheezy after eating but now I leave it for a while to take the chill off it I don’t wheeze at all now ?? Work that one out lol… cheers shirazmataz
🤔👌 food for thoughts Catman, I have hot porridge in the morning, like the tastes of your teas, ginger+lemon tea for me, I shall check those other herbal teas out, but I often drink peppermint tea in the evenings with a little bit of honey! I find it aids digestion as well👌I prefer toast, then it's not cold, my juice is room temperature!
Cold air makes your lungs work harder too! So would recommend to Shirazmataz not to consume food straight out the fridge! Even a bit of ice-cream I let it stand for a bit so it's not freezing cold 🥶
Well I will have to tighten my belt as Councillors here decided to raise our Council Tax for 9% 😏😏🤔 I dreading this! 9% is far too much and extortionate punishing low-income families and pensioners 😏
Yeah cheers Snowfkake,.. yeah sorry I meant Whitby, really liked it there but I don’t travel much now due to health but lots of Lovely places to go to in London.
Thanks for the suggestions and I haven’t had Porridge for ages so I might get some soon.. yeah the council taxes are very high so I hope you can manage ok
I buy my porridge oats from Aldi and let them steep for 30 mins with hot boiling water! Then add a little bit of unsweetened soyamilk, I add small banana 🍌+ half a orange 🍊, a little honey +cinnamon, 2x per week just a few walnut pieces, which are cheaper in Aldi Supermarket! Apropo, Whitby is 6 hours drive from you I gather, so don't blame you, but there's always National Express Bus you could use Catman 😁👍
I hope you keep yourself busy in your area! Have you got any children or grandchildren already? I have 5 grandchildren now age 4 - 13 years old! Sometimes I asked myself where's has the time gone 🤷
Right must go Catman! Enjoy the rest of your Day 🥰
Thankyou catman , i might try the hemp tea from Holland and Barrett, see if it helps. The cold things from the fridge rings bells with me. A physio friend noticed i started to cough after drinking cold and iced drinks. Yes i then realised she was right. As you swallow the coldness makes your lungs clamp up, so need to take any pills with warm water before using inhalers. Give them s better chance of working.😺
You’re welcome 🙂, yeah why not, H&Bs herbal tea are quite expensive though, think the hemp one is £5.99 as it contains CBDs but they have a deal at the moment where you can buy one and get the another for half price ( just giving you a heads up as you can probably buy just normal hemp tea (without CBD) cheaper elsewhere..
Yeah it makes sense regarding the cold stuff, wonder how it will be in the summer if it will still affects us that way as our body temperature warms up ?
Good luck with the hemp tea, let us know how it goes if you if you end up trying it 🙂
Good morning Catman55. And welcome to this friendly forum. Where we are all living with the same conditions. I was wondering if you were born in 1955 like myself with your forum name. If you need specific information just type a word in the healthunlocked search box and plenty of previous posts will come up. Enjoy the group and keep in touch and keep well. Brian
Thank you for the welcome… No, I was born in 1967, yeah I’m a bit of a cat man so put the two together to make catman.. thank you for the info Bingo and I sure will , Cheers Brian 👍
Hi chook, well done for giving up smoking. You will be glad you've joined this forum as everyone is lovely and helpful. You can learn a lot just by reading other people's posts here and are always there when you need help. 😉
HI welcome to this big group. I was born with PCD, and have had lung and breathing difficulties many years. I find some posts very useful, hope you will too. I’m also on PCD group but because that’s very rare don’t get many posts. Jean x
Thank you for the welcome and hope you’re getting by ok, PCD must of drove you mad as you were growing up, does it feel like an itchy feeling and you have to keep coughing ?
HI AND WELCOME to this forum you will have great support and understanding through you're challenging times when you need to find anything out there's plenty off support hear on forum
As well as the great support and information from our members, do feel free to give us a call at the helpline if you need any advice about managing your lung condition.
Ahhh that’s so cool, I would like to live somewhere like that where there loads of animals around and cats just floating about ( I live in central London so i don’t see cats roaming about like I used to years ago and it’s much safer to keep cats indoors around here nowadays.
Awh that’s lovely about your tabby cat, bet he/she is a very wise cat with big whiskers 🙂
Up until last May I lived in Central Cardiff for many years and I had been wanting to have moved to the outskirts for ages as central had gone to rack and ruin!
It was hard at first moving and a big step and getting used to a different lifestyle in the outskirts but the world hasn't ended as its a different lifestyle up here things are just different and I feel it's for the better myself!
You know what well done for making that move, does take a bit of bottle to up and move for a different way of life and different area also…I never used to like the country side or farms as we used to go away as kids for a couple weeks in the countryside and always ended up having asthma attacks ( this was in the mid to late seventies before I got my first inhaler ) so I stopped going after a while and the countryside always reminded me of asthma attacks but things changed when I got into my teens and got a steroid inhaler which was brilliant and my asthma subsided for a few years and I started going on camping trips with friends again and I grew to love the countryside again with all the wildlife etc.. I’m sure you’ll be very happy for years to come in that environment 👍
My father in law said to me well done you for having made that move and had said I had been very brave in doing it!
At the council housing office the housing officer had said to me that they had this place vacant and did I want it and I had bitten their arms off and taken the place and had said I would give it a fair try and I could always move again in future if I didn't like it as nothing is fixed and forever in life!
When I said we had snapped the place up my father in law had said to think it through but it was too late as the deal had already been done and I made sure to ask for the offer in writing which they did for me and all my father in law did was wish us the best of luck with it all!
However my mother was extremely put out when I told her we had moved as she hadn't been consulted about the decision and had put me down over it but there was nothing she could do about it as by then the lease had been signed and the deal done and that was that!
Nice 🙂.. yeah brave move that… well it is becoming now that people are really lucky if council are offering them permanent accommodation even with kids, I don’t think they are giving council flats out for good , now it’s a 2-3 year fixed term offer so the days of families growing up together on the same street are long gone so I’m glad to hear it is working out for you and you’re not missing nothing being out of the city, Infact I know people who live around my way that would bite both your arms off to swap places with you,
I was gonna call you turnip to shorten your name but I don’t think that’s very courteous, cheers Turnipgirl 🙂
I don't think the local councils do secure lifetime tenancies nowadays.
The one I got offered is a 5 year fixed term tenancy which suits me fine as like I say nothing is fixed and forever is it in life?
It was bad that I had to wait to get the letter from the bailiffs saying they were coming in to evict at the end of May last year until the council would do anything for me as I got evicted from my city centre apartment as they wanted to turn it into an air b and b place and I do feel when they did that by accident they did me a good turn but it wasn't very nice having to go through the legal process of getting evicted and all that went on for nearly a year as well as it all started in the July of 2022 and ended at the end of May last year and thankfully I got out before the bailiffs came in to evict!
My friends reckon that life had deliberately waited until my father had died and was out of the way when it decided to move me up here!
My father was a bully and a snob and would have made rude comments about me having a council place which is why they reckon life had decided to move me up here after my father had died.
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