C
hronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a disease in your lungs that damages both your airways and the lung tissue, all of this damage makes it very difficult to breathe and causes other significant side effects that will impact your wellbeing. If you have COPD, you may have obstructive bronchiolitis, emphysema, or a combination of the two conditions.
After being diagnosed with COPD, you will likely be exposed to several different kinds of medicines to help control your symptoms. These medications can help improve your quality of life, but it will not cure COPD. In fact, there is no cure for COPD, therefore, in this article will explain the different types of medicines used for COPD and how you can get the most out of these medications. For more information on COPD, see our LPT medical resource center
All of the COPD medications and treatments can end up being very confusing to a COPD patient, so we took the time to break it down. In this article you will find:
Before we get into specific COPD mediation, we thought it would be helpful to give you some tips on how to manage your COPD medication to the best of your ability. Simply dealing with a chronic illness is hard enough, so we compiled some ways you can take control of your medication.
The first and most important step in managing your COPD medication, is to develop a good system and then to make that system into your daily routine. Because your life and your condition is unique to you, your system should be individualized to meet your needs, but we have created an outline you can follow when developing your system, so make changes as you see fit.
If you're still having a hard time managing your medications, ask your doctor for more suggestions, and involve the people in your life who love and care for you.
If COPD is affecting your breathing, you'll usually be given an inhaler. Inside of your inhalers are Bronchodilators, this is the medication that you breathe in making it easier to breathe by relaxing and widening your airways.
There are different kinds of bronchodilators, and they will all affect you differently. The different types of bronchodilators depend on three things:
There are short-acting, long-acting, also known as beta agonists and anticholinergics medications, and then there are steroid inhalers. All of which are used for different purposes.
Short-acting Bronchodilators open up your airways fast; they are also known as "quick-acting," "reliever," or "rescue" medications. These medications will relax the muscles that surround your airways, allowing the tubes in your lungs to open up quickly, making it easier to breathe in the case of a COPD exacerbation, or if you are exercising and need to open your airways fast for a short amount of time.
Overall, short-acting inhalers work quickly and are used for the short term management of exacerbated COPD symptoms or episodes so you can get relief from breathlessness fast.
You should only use short-acting bronchodilators up to a maximum of 4 times a day, but this is different for everyone. You and your doctor should discuss in detail when and why you should choose your short-acting inhaler over another medication in different scenarios.
Here some examples of short-acting bronchodilators:
You may have some side effects depending on the type of short-acting bronchodilator that you use, and how it affects you.
There can be some side effects after taking a short-acting inhaler.
Albuterol is one type of short-acting bronchodilator. It provides relief from an asthma attack or COPD exacerbation and it is usually taken in one of four ways: Albuterol can be taken as:
1.) An inhaler
2.) A nebulizer
3.) A pill
4). A liquid.
Side effects of albuterol include the following:
More-serious — though less common — side effects include:
Some people may find that dealing with these side effects of albuterol to be intolerable, in which case you can talk to your doctor about the following options:
Over-all, the severity of side effects depends on how much of the drug you take. Short-acting bronchodilators are intended to treat exacerbated symptoms, therefore it is not intended for long-term disease management. This means that if you are taking frequent doses you will likely experience more severe side-effects, and you and your doctor should discuss your overall treatment plan to reduce exacerbation symptoms.
If you experience symptoms consistently throughout the day, you will likely be prescribed a long-acting bronchodilator inhaler. These medications will provide you with extended control over your symptoms.
This is a similar medication to short-acting bronchodilators, but the difference is that each dose lasts for at least 12 hours, and will only need to be used once or twice a day and it will take longer to initiate. The purpose of long-acting bronchodilators is to keep your airways open for long periods of time.
There are 2 types of long-acting bronchodilator inhaler:
If you start to experience harsh side effects from your medication, you should speak with your doctor about your prescription because you might be getting too much medication with every dose or you might need a different bronchodilator to help with your symptom management.
Bronchodilators can have side effects such as:
More serious side effects include:
After some time with a long-acting inhaler, if you start to notice that you are still becoming breathless or if you are having frequent COPD flare-ups (exacerbations), your doctor may suggest including a steroid inhaler as part of your treatment.
You can use an inhaler or a nebulizer to deliver steroids directly into your lungs. Oral steroids are less effective for people whose symptoms are stable. A nebulizer turns the medicine into a fine aerosol mist pumps the mist through a flexible tube and into a mask that you wear across your nose and mouth
Inhaled steroids tend to be used as maintenance medications to keep symptoms under control for the long term. They also are normally prescribed as part of a combination inhaler that also includes a long-acting medicine.
Some inhaled steroids are more concentrated and powerful so that they can help control more advanced COPD symptoms. Milder forms of COPD may be controlled by weaker doses.
Inhaled steroids aren’t meant for fast relief from a COPD flare-up. In these instances, an inhaled drug called a bronchodilator can help relieve coughing and help you catch your breath.
The possible side effects of inhaled steroids include:
You could also experience an increased risk of pneumonia with the long-term use of inhaled steroids. To reduce this risk of oral infection, rinse your mouth and gargle with water after you use the inhaler.
It is possible that your symptoms cannot be controlled with your inhalers alone, so your doctor may recommend taking tablets or capsules as well.
Theophylline is another form of a bronchodilator, it works by reducing the swelling in your airways and relaxing the muscles.
These Theophylline tablets or capsules are usually taken twice daily. To reduce your chances of experiencing side effects from tablets, you may also need to have regular blood tests during treatment to check the level of medicine in your blood.
Side effects you may experience from this COPD medication are as follows:
If you experience a bad chesty cough and lots of thick phlegm, your doctor may recommend taking a mucolytic medicine called carbocisteine.
Mucolytic medicine will thin out the phlegm in your throat making it easier to cough up and remove from your airways, subsequently making it easier to breathe.
If you have particularly bad flare-ups often, you may be prescribed a short course of steroid tablets to reduce the inflammation in your airways and help bring your symptoms back down to manageable levels. Your doctor may give you a supply of steroid tablets to keep at home to take as soon as you experience a bad flare-up.
After this, you will be monitored closely for side effects of the medication and if you need a stronger set of steroids to manage your bad flare-ups, you can be tested for that.
Long-term use of steroid tablets can cause troublesome side effects, so you want to be sure you only take these tablets when necessary for no longer than they are prescribed to you.
If you do take these steroid tablets for a extended amount of time you may start to experience side effects such as:
There are times when your doctor may prescribe a short course of antibiotics if you start to experience symptoms of chest infection, such as:
If you are prone to chest infections, you may need to have antibiotics on hand for when you do.
Once you are capable of recognizing an infection in your respiratory system, you may be given a course of antibiotics to keep at home and take as soon as you experience symptoms of an infection.
Depending on your health and your COPD, different variations of the medications listed in this article may be a part of you COPD treatment regimen. If you have another disease such as heart disease along with COPD there are other medications not mentioned that you will likely start taking daily.
Dealing with COPD is challenging on its own, and when you also have to be weary of medications and its side effects, there are even more challenges to face.
We recommend keeping a health journal so that you can keep track of how the medications you take makes you feel, this will also help you stay on track of your medication so you can be sure that you are doing it all correctly.
If you do not like journaling, try to find another organizational method that will help you stay on track with taking your correct medications at the correct times.
If something is making you feel unwell and the side effects are very noticeable, let your doctor know so they can either adjust the amount of medication you are taking, or switch you to a new medication that might give you less side effects.
Sometimes COPD medication can be a trial and error type of process, so be patient and stay optimistic that your medication will eventually help you to live a healthier lifestyle.
That being said, medication alone cannot treat your COPD, there are other very important lifestyle changes you should make in order to best treat your COPD. This includes eating a healthy diet, exercise regularly, taking pulmonary rehab, and utilizing oxygen therapy if you need it.