COPD
Symptoms and Diagnosis
Common Symptoms
The symptoms of COPD include: constant cough; excess sputum (mucus) production; shortness of breath while doing activities you used to be able to do; wheezing, or whistling sound when you breathe; and tightness in the chest.
The most common symptoms of COPD are a cough that does not go away and coughing up lots of sputum. These symptoms often start years before the flow of air in and out of the lungs is reduced. Not everyone who has a cough and sputum goes on to develop COPD.
Getting a Diagnosis
If your doctor thinks you may have COPD, he or she will examine you, listen to your lungs, and ask you questions about your medical history, and what lung irritants you may have been around for long periods of time.
To confirm a diagnosis of COPD, your doctor will use a breathing test called spirometry. The test is easy and painless and shows how well your lungs work.
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In a spirometry test, you breathe hard into a large hose connected to a machine called a spirometer. When you breathe out, the spirometer measures how much air your lungs can hold and how fast you can blow air out of your lungs.
Determining COPD Severity
Based on this test, your doctor can determine if you have COPD and how severe it is. There are four levels of severity for COPD:
- people at risk for COPD
- people with mild COPD
- people with moderate COPD
- people with severe COPD
Those at risk for developing COPD have a normal breathing test and mild symptoms such as chronic cough and sputum production.
Those with mild COPD have mild breathing limitation. Symptoms may include a chronic cough and sputum production. At this stage, you may not be aware that airflow in your lungs is reduced.
With moderate COPD, your breathing test shows worsening airflow blockages. Symptoms may be worse than with mild COPD and you may experience shortness of breath while working hard, walking fast, or doing brisk activity. At this stage, you would seek medical attention.
With severe COPD, the breathing test shows severe limitation of the airflow. People with severe COPD will be short of breath after just a little activity. In very severe COPD, complications like respiratory failure or signs of heart failure may develop. At this stage, quality of life is impaired and worsening symptoms may be life-threatening.
Other Tests
Other tests are used to rule out other causes of the symptoms.
Bronchodilator reversibility testing uses the spirometer and medications called bronchodilators to assess whether breathing problems may be caused by asthma.
Your doctor may also order a chest X-ray and an arterial blood gas test. The blood test shows the oxygen level in the blood to see if oxygen treatment is needed.
