Emphysema, how-to prevent and avoid symptoms from happening?

im curious to what may cause symptoms to appear if a person has emphysema... i would love to know what to keep away from... i know the obvious answer is smoking and anyone that smokes.. but what other things may cause someone with emphysema to bring on symptoms? i've heard lots of things like "stay away from celling fans" or just wind in general? and many other things... can someone please shed light on this issue? thank you

Emphysema as stated previously is typically caused by smoking and less likely second hand smoke. So not smoking would prevent the development of emphysema.

There is another rarely genetic disorder called alpha-1 anti trypsin deficiency that account of 1-2% of all emphysema patient.
http://www.netdoctor.co.uk/diseases/fact...

The way emphysema works is as follows: people smoke and over time the toxins in the smoke damages and thins out your lung tissue. As you get less and less lung tissue, there is less surface area by which the oxygen that you breathe can cross into your blood. Remember, that with less lung issue there is less surface the oxygen can come into contact with and cross into your blood. If enough lung tissue is destoyed, there is less oxygen going into your body and your body recognizes this. You get short of breath. In addition when you do activity, your body's oxygen demand increase but the limiting factor is the limited amount of oxygen your lung can get into your system. So people with emphysema have poor exercise tolerance and they fatigue early. By the time people develope symptoms from emphysema, it is pretty advanced. The way that I see it is that people have alot of reserve lung tissue initially that compensates for the progressive lost of lung tissue. There is a point when all your reserve is used up which is late in the ballgame that you become symptomatic.

Obviously, anything that tries to push your lungs to do more will result in the lung not being about to meet the demand. So things like allergies, a common cold, and pneumonia can all try to push you lungs to do more but it can't.

This however is a very simplistic view of emphysema but I hope you understand it a bit better. Getting on medication will help with the symptoms in addition to pulmonary rehab which helps to increase you physical endurance. Get yearly flu shots and get your pneumonia shots. See you doctor early when you develop increasing shortness of breathe, a cold or change in you cough or a fever. Treat allergies and cold/bronchitis aggressively.

The ceiling fans thing is an old wives tale. The main cause of emphysema is smoking or being in areas with alot of smoke.

dont smoke, my gma died from emphysema and it was horrible watching her die a little and suffer so much every day

Nicotine causes emphysema. If you were in a fire, you would not get it. This is the only cause of this terrible disease. People with this disease should not stay away from fans. They need as must O2 as possible, and fans make it possible, especially if it is in a window. Ceiling fans that circulates smoke are detrimental, however.

I would like to tell you celling fans or win in general will not cause you to have COPD. chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. AKA emphysema. Stay away from asbestos dust. ( which is hard to find nowadays ) or inhaled brake dust. Someone said that fans give you more O2 that is not true room air only has about 21% O2 no mater if you have a fan or not.