Dealing With Bronchitis

If you are suffering from chronic bronchitis, there are necessary lifestyle changes that will in fact save your life.

If you plan to continue to worsen, keep doing what you are doing now.  If you want to improve your health, you have to make very important yet very difficult decisions.  There’s no easy way around it.  Unfortunately, giving up some of your freedoms will improve your chances of surviving what chronic bronchitis will do to you.

Through a few changes in your lifestyle, you will increase your longevity.  You will not add an more punishment to the condition that you are already facing.  What’s more is that you give your body the chance to improve some of the damage that’s been done to you.

Throughout this chapter, we will go through each of these necessary lifestyle changes and show you how to make simple decisions to live.  Although it may be difficult, with family support, you can improve your fighting chance against chronic bronchitis.

Stop Smoking

You knew we were going to say it, but smoking is the cause of your chronic bronchitis and therefore you simply must stop doing it.  This is the hardest part of the process of improving your lifestyle in the hopes of prolonging your life. 

If you continue to smoke, you continue to add damage to your lungs and your bronchial tubes, worsening your condition, pushing you farther and faster through the stages of chronic bronchitis and ultimately shutting off your oxygen supply completely.

If you stop smoking, you stop adding additional damage to your lungs.  You slow the progression of the disease significantly and, in some case, your body can repair some of the damage that has been done.  Although the most difficult decision that you have to make, it is the one that will have the most significant difference in the life of a person suffering from chronic bronchitis.

The good news is that there is quite a bit of help to the smoker today that can aid them in improving their chances of stopping this habit.

Smoking, including that of cigarette smoke and even marijuana smoking damages the lungs and is one of the general causes of chronic bronchitis.

What To Do

To stop smoking, you have to consider your dependence on it.  Talk to your doctor about your condition, why you smoke and how important it is to your daily lifestyle.  When your doctor can understand your dependency, he or she is likely to recommend the appropriate treatment for your condition.

Smoking help can be obtained by simply calling on any of the smoking hotlines.  Your doctor can offer help in the way of prescription medication as well.  Support groups are offered in virtually every large city to give you the support you need from others that are stopping to smoke. 

There are also pills and patches that help to reduce your dependence on nicotine.  When you get your nicotine from a patch, for example, you don’t do the damage that you do by smoking.  Therefore, it is a safe option than using cigarettes to get that same relief.

Those that are victims of secondary smoke also need to take into consideration the very important need to remove that situation.  If it is from your job, you need to find a way to remove yourself from that situation. 

Secondary smoke can be just as bad and sometimes worse to the body and therefore needs to be a consideration.  If your chronic bronchitis has been brought on by secondary smoke, it has to stop.

Stop smoking.  It’s the single most important thing that you can do to improve your longevity in the way of chronic bronchitis.  If you continue to smoke, you continue to lessen your life span.  Unfortunately, there is no better way to show you the importance of this single need.

Improve Air Quality

If you work in an area that the air quality is poor, then you need to improve this quality or stop working there.  Chronic bronchitis can be brought on by the air that you breathe if it is not as clean as it should be.

Chemicals in the air as well as pollutants can do the same damage as smoking does.  Therefore, you need to take into consideration the need for improvement of the air quality that you breathe.

What To Do

If the air that you breathe is not healthy, then improvement is necessary.  Remove contaminants that are in the air.  Reduce the use of chemicals that can also cause pollution.  If this is your work environment, speak to your supervisor about moving to a more clean air area.  In addition, contact your human resource manager about your rights for clean air in the work place.

If you can not improve the quality of the air your breath in this manner, you can use air purifying tools to aid you.  There are air purifiers on the market that can safely pull particles and contaminants from the air to aid in a healthy air space.

To Alleviate Symptoms

Those that suffer from acute bronchitis or chronic bronchitis can make some changes to their lifestyle to improve their daily living.  To improve the quality of life that you experience, make these changes.

• Use a humidifier when sleeping.  This puts moisture into the air, making your cough lessen.  Steam will also work in the morning, for example, by taking a hot shower.
• Drink as much fluid as you can.  Fluids are lost during a respiratory infection such as a cold or bronchitis.  Drinking more will give your body what it needs.
• Get your rest.  When you feel a bout of bronchitis coming on, you need to pull out of some of your activities and work and relax.  You need additional sleep but also time to just sit.  Conserving your energy is a very important need for those suffering from bronchitis.
• Get help.  When you are sick, you need someone to help meet your needs.  You should also seek the help of a doctor when your conditions and symptoms are severe as well as those times when you’ve had bronchitis more than two times in one year.

Oxygen Therapy

Many patients that have chronic bronchitis that has progressed into later stages will need the help of oxygen therapy to aid in improving their conditions. 

Oxygen is prescribed by your doctor.  If he or she does tell you that you need it, it’s important for you to consider getting it.  Doing so will aid in improving the quality of life that you have as well as giving your body the required amounts of oxygen to perform your daily functions.

Those that don’t use the oxygen that their doctors tell them to use can face additional problems.  For example, you may find yourself unable to exercise or do any physical movements.  In addition, when the oxygen supply in the blood is too low for too long, a person can pass out or even worse slip into a comma. 

Oxygen can be administered easily through the use of a tank and a nose piece.  It is commonly used to help patients to get a good amount of oxygen into their blood quickly.  If your doctor recommends it, don’t go without it.

These things can improve your health and well being if you invest the time in implementing them.  You also need to realize the need to follow your doctor’s orders.  If your doctor puts you on a restrictive exercise regimen, then you need to follow it. 

Learning all you can about your condition is just as important.  Seeking the help of your doctor and following his advice will also help.  No matter how you feel, medications and treatments prescribed to you need to be followed.