How Serious Is Your Emphysema? Stage 2 is also called moderate emphysema. But that doesn't always mean that your disease is moderate. If you're young and otherwise healthy, you could have severe lung damage and still be at stage 2.
Stage 2 COPD life expectancy is 2.2 years.
Emphysema is a chronic obstructive pulmonary disease that damages the air sacs in your lungs and makes it hard to breathe. You can't reverse emphysema damage, and it'll gradually get worse. However, you can manage the symptoms with treatment and slow down the effects of emphysema.
But the condition can be controlled. People with mild emphysema who quit smoking have a normal life expectancy. Those who adopt good health habits can enjoy a fairly normal lifestyle for a long time.
Stage 2 (moderate) COPD: You may experience persistent coughing and phlegm (often worse in the morning), increased shortness of breath, tiredness, sleep problems, or wheezing.
Typically, you get drugs called bronchodilators, which make breathing easier. You inhale these medications to relax and to expand your airways. This allows more air into your lungs so your body gets more oxygen. Talk to your doctor about which type is right for you.
Especially if your COPD is diagnosed early, if you have mild stage COPD, and your disease is well managed and controlled, you may be able to live for 10 or even 20 years after diagnosis.
"It's not a death sentence by any means. Many people will live into their 70s, 80s, or 90s with COPD.” But that's more likely, he says, if your case is mild and you don't have other health problems like heart disease or diabetes.
Emphysema usually progresses slowly and the majority of patients do not notice the changes in their breathing. Some patients do experience a faster onset of symptoms, though that is less common.
So relatively, you can stay at the mild stage of the disease forever, with lots of work and a little luck. We measure lung function in how much air you can blow out in the first second of expiration (the FEV1 on a spirometry or PFT).
Emphysema continues to progress even after people stop smoking. However, quitting smoking helps reduce symptoms and improve quality of life and life expectancy.
Emphysema and COPD can't be cured, but treatments can help relieve symptoms and slow the progression of the disease.
Doctors consider stage 2 COPD to be moderate. When a person has stage 2 COPD, their symptoms can include shortness of breath, chronic cough, and frequent respiratory infections. COPD will generally become more severe as the disease progresses.
When to use oxygen for emphysema. A doctor may recommend that a person begin using oxygen therapy when their blood oxygen saturation falls below 88% or their blood oxygen level falls below 55 millimeters of mercury (mmHg) at rest.
Studies suggest that those with stage one or two (mild and moderate) COPD who smoke lose a few years of life expectancy at the age of 65. For those with stages three or four (severe and very severe) COPD, they lose from six to nine years of life expectancy due to smoking.
Pulmonary emphysema usually occurs at 60 to 80 years of age, and is defined as being early-onset when the disease develops before 55 years of age (1). Not surprisingly, early-onset pulmonary emphysema is a rare condition.
Emphysema is usually caused by cigarette smoking. There is no cure, but the condition can be managed using medications and adjustments to lifestyle.
How Serious Is Your Emphysema? Stage 1 is also called mild emphysema. But that doesn't mean your disease is mild. You could have significant lung damage before you even notice the breathing problems of stage 1, especially if you're relatively young and otherwise healthy.
Which has worse symptoms? Because emphysema is a late stage of COPD, the signs and symptoms are similar. If you have emphysema, you are already experiencing COPD symptoms, though earlier stages of COPD will not have as dramatic an impact as the degree of tissue degeneration is minimal.
Emphysema gets worse over time. You cannot undo the damage to your lungs. Over time, you may find that: You get short of breath even when you do things like get dressed or fix a meal.
Oxygen Therapy for Emphysema
Oxygen therapy can help people with severe emphysema that have low levels of oxygen in their blood to breathe better. The treatment involves administering oxygen either through a mask, or through two small tubes that enter the nose (nasal prongs).
The combination of albuterol and ipratropium is used to prevent wheezing, difficulty breathing, chest tightness, and coughing in people with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD; a group of diseases that affect the lungs and airways) such as chronic bronchitis (swelling of the air passages that lead to the lungs ...