Hi,
I'm 28 and my FEV1 has been 35% for about 10 years. I can do a lot with it (work, lead an active life, etc) but of course am always afraid of it decreasing since it's already so low. (I do get tired a lot obviously).
For this reason, I have always thought I had a 35% lung capacity.
However, I did a very expensive, thorough test recently where they truly tested my lung capacity, heart, breath rate and even muscles and now we found out that my real lung capacity is 67%.
This came as a massive surprise, of course, and went against everything I ever believed. However, here's the downside... I found out I suffer from 'inffective respiratory effect' (which I now know a lot of us suffer from) and I breathe so ineffectively that the doctor says that my real problem is this, and not my lung capacity.
I'm going to start doing a very specific type of physiotherapy to tackle this problem and he hopes I can retrain my breathing and start making use of my real lung capacity.
This sounds like a dream, a window of opportunity that I never knew I could have, but at the same time I can't help being afraid that it won't work and I'll have to be put on night oxygen for the first time to prevent my heart from suffering in the long run. (Everything else was fine by the way, muscles and heart results were perfect).
Has any of you gone through something similar?
Any thoughts will be helpful, since I am kind of confused.
Thanks,
Vera
I'm 28 and my FEV1 has been 35% for about 10 years. I can do a lot with it (work, lead an active life, etc) but of course am always afraid of it decreasing since it's already so low. (I do get tired a lot obviously).
For this reason, I have always thought I had a 35% lung capacity.
However, I did a very expensive, thorough test recently where they truly tested my lung capacity, heart, breath rate and even muscles and now we found out that my real lung capacity is 67%.
This came as a massive surprise, of course, and went against everything I ever believed. However, here's the downside... I found out I suffer from 'inffective respiratory effect' (which I now know a lot of us suffer from) and I breathe so ineffectively that the doctor says that my real problem is this, and not my lung capacity.
I'm going to start doing a very specific type of physiotherapy to tackle this problem and he hopes I can retrain my breathing and start making use of my real lung capacity.
This sounds like a dream, a window of opportunity that I never knew I could have, but at the same time I can't help being afraid that it won't work and I'll have to be put on night oxygen for the first time to prevent my heart from suffering in the long run. (Everything else was fine by the way, muscles and heart results were perfect).
Has any of you gone through something similar?
Any thoughts will be helpful, since I am kind of confused.
Thanks,
Vera