Is COPD serious?

Although patients with milder cases of COPD will not experience any symptoms, it cannot be ignored, because the disease is likely to become more and more serious over time, eventually causing patients to frequently cough, especially at night, when they will find themselves coughing more and more, which will affect their sleep quality.

1. Cough

Long-term, recurrent, and gradually worsening cough is a prominent manifestation of this disease. The cough is intermittent at first and is more severe in the morning. Later, there is cough in the morning and evening or throughout the day, but the cough is not obvious at night. In mild cases, the disease only occurs in winter and spring, and the cough is relieved or disappears in summer and autumn. In severe cases, the cough occurs in all seasons and worsens in winter and spring. The cough is more severe during an acute attack. There are also a few cases in which there is obvious airflow limitation but no cough symptoms.

2. Coughing up phlegm

After coughing, a small amount of grayish white mucous sputum is usually coughed up. Some patients have more in the early morning. When there is a concurrent infection, the amount of sputum increases and often contains purulent sputum. In a few cases, cough is not accompanied by sputum.

3. Shortness of breath or difficulty breathing

It is the hallmark symptom of COPD and the main cause of anxiety in patients. In the early stage, it only occurs during exertion, and then gradually worsens, so that shortness of breath is felt during daily activities or even rest.

4. Wheezing and chest tightness

It is not a specific symptom of COPD. Some patients, especially those with severe symptoms, experience wheezing and chest tightness, which usually occurs after exertion and is related to labored breathing and contraction of the intercostal muscles.

5. Other symptoms

Late-stage patients often suffer from weight loss, loss of appetite, depression and/or anxiety, and may cough up blood or sputum when combined with infection.

There are many factors that cause COPD, and many of them are still unclear and need further research. In recent years, researchers believe that the causes of COPD include individual susceptibility factors and environmental factors, which influence each other.

It is now believed that the more clear individual susceptibility factor is α1-antitrypsin deficiency, and the most important environmental factor is smoking, as well as exposure to occupational dust and chemicals (smoke, allergens, industrial waste gas and indoor polluted air, etc.). In rural my country, the risk factors for COPD are also related to the large amount of oil fumes produced during cooking and smoke produced by fuel.

At present, it is recognized that smoking is an important cause of COPD. The longer the smoking time and the more cigarettes are smoked, the higher the incidence rate. The prevalence of chronic bronchitis in smokers is more than 10 times higher than that in non-smokers. According to statistics, the incidence of chronic bronchitis among people who smoke more than 40 cigarettes a day is as high as 75.3%.