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Please take a moment to read this article: How does stigma surrounding COPD affect research and care?
That article is the inspiration for this post.
Since being diagnosed with COPD I have run into a few people that wanted to blame me for my own illness.
"Well, you shouldn't have smoked!" Coming from someone who also was a smoker, but had quit years ago.
"It's your fault, you smoked!" Again, coming from some who had also previously smoked!
(If the so called facts are correct, since they both smoked over 100 cigarettes in their life, they WILL get COPD) I personally call BS on that.
This post is not the most pleasant. I am just tired of the BS. Even the questionnaires, and studies I have done, focus only on smoking. They read like a huge demographic study...
Zip code?
Age?
Sex?
Highest education level completed?
Income level?
Did you smoke?
Who much did you smoke?
Have you quit smoking?
Thank you for participating.
Seriously? There is ZERO focus on ANY of the hundreds of other possible causes? What is up with that? I may have only been diagnosed in 2011, but I have embraced my COPD diagnosis. I have plunged into the world of COPD research and joined many online support groups. There are many possible commonalities amongst us... Smoking is just one small reason of the MANY reasons we could have this illness.
If a study only focuses on one cause, it WILL find that cause. We need to know ALL of the reasons.
NOT ALL OF US SMOKED!
There are reports of young children being diagnosed with COPD. Just recently and 9 year old and a 3 year old. Children that NEVER smoked, and NEVER had smoking around them. So, when I hear that it is a smoker's disease, or an old smoker's disease, I get angry.
What I have noticed in many of my fellow COPD friends is that many of us have pets. I was working in a pet store cleaning a very small room full of adoptable cats, and sometimes rabbits. I was a manager, so I spend LOTS of time in the grooming salon, inhaling hair clippings and nail dust. Nail dust can contain fungus! Let not forget that I was mildly allergic, and the allergic reaction grew worse and worse with more exposure this time. I had previously worked there for years and had no issues.
We cook, many of us use Teflon coated pots and pans, Teflon releases a toxin into the air... It KILLS birds. Birds were used to test air conditions in the old days of mining. If it isn't good for the bird, it isn't good for us.
My Ex used to clean with pinesol, so much of it that I had to leave the house because my lungs burned.
After that happening several times....
I was getting sick with pneumonia every 2 months, for a year before anything was done to stop the excess mucus and acid reflux which likely aided the infection to build up in my lungs. The damage was done.
***Not one medical professional, or study I have done, asked about any of this***
So, I hope you see where I am going with this. There are many more reasons we may have this. And with a few recent research articles I have read, they prove that. One, is a previous blog post, is about how at some point most of us have had a viral infection in the lungs and it caused some damage. Another, which I had not saved, and haven't found again... It suggested that as our blood carries nutrients to our organs, it is somehow passing up our lungs, causing a nutrient deficiency. When I find that article again, I will make a separate post.
Previous post Link to original article
We need to remove the stigma that comes with COPD. It is imperative that we do so NOW. We need to demand that research focus on ALL of the potential causes. We need to respect the fact that we now have CHILDREN being diagnosed, who are so innocent, and they never need to be accused of self harm.
NOTE: smoking is bad, don't do it. It WILL cause COPD to progress faster.
Now take a deep breathe and slowly exhale through pursed lips ;)
~April
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