If you have COPD, you're probably no stranger to feeling drained, tired, and lethargic. Fatigue is a common problem for COPD patients, and a serious one at that. Fatigue is a common culprit behind exercise avoidance and sedentary living, which causes many patients to experience a quicker physical decline.

If you have COPD, then you know that it can be dangerous when your symptoms suddenly get worse. That's why preventing flare-ups and exacerbations is one of the main goals of treatment for people with COPD.

If you have COPD, you're probably especially concerned about making healthy diet and lifestyle choices. You have to maintain your health carefully to prevent the disease from progressing, and that means eating nutritious foods and avoiding unhealthy and toxic substances.

Many people with COPD also struggle with anxiety. It's an understandable reaction to the daily worries and hardships of living with a chronic disease. However, for patients who don't find ways to treat their anxiety and manage it in healthy ways, that anxiety can grow to the point that it causes serious problems and affects many aspects of their lives.

COPD is a life-long, chronic disease that can cause a great deal of stress, anxiety, and physical discomfort. Because of this, people with COPD often have to grapple with depression and other psychological issues as a result of living with this difficult disease.

"Is being barrel chested bad?" — In the later stages of COPD, some people with the disease begin to notice a barrel-shaped chest that, understandably, leads to concern. Although this is not always a serious issue, it can be a sign of emphysema, a type of COPD. 

As a respiratory disease, COPD comes with many symptoms, but the most serious and uncomfortable of these symptoms is difficulty breathing. These breathing problems have a variety of interconnected causes, including airway obstruction, reduced lung function, and a reduced capacity for exercise that are all caused by COPD.

Although COPD is known primarily as a lung disease, some of its most serious complications have to do with the heart. People with COPD tend to struggle with a variety of cardiovascular symptoms and complications, including cardiovascular disease, heart attacks, and heart failure.

Lung function decline is a defining characteristic of COPD, and it gets worse as the disease progresses. Because of this, most COPD patients eventually have to begin using supplemental oxygen to help their lungs once they become too weak to absorb enough oxygen on their own.

The purpose of supplemental oxygen is to deliver extremely oxygen-rich air to your lungs, usually using a pressurized oxygen tank or an oxygen concentrator. This air, generally about 85-95 percent pure oxygen, allows your lungs absorb more oxygen with every breath.

Supplemental oxygen is a very important part of COPD treatment because it helps your lungs take in enough oxygen to supply your organs and tissues with the oxygen they need. Without it, your blood oxygen saturation can fall to unhealthy levels—a condition called hypoxemia—which can lead to serious, life-threatening complications over time.

For many patients who have COPD, oxygen therapy is a major feature of day-to-day life. If you use oxygen during the daytime, managing oxygen tanks and equipment inevitably becomes a routine part of almost every daily task and activity.