Hi, first off great to find a community like this! The amount of content is amazing.
I have joined the forum on behalf of my mother who was diagnosed with Type 2 COPD 4 years ago.
She had been diagnosed with a form of COPD before that but was more or less fine.Could do her daily chores and routine. It was not until she ended up getting pneumonia, after being misdiagnosed with anxiety on a trip to Africa 4 years back.
After returning to the Jersey Channel Islands and after 3 months of waiting for an appointment we visited the only lung specialist on the island who prescribed a 6 month use of oxygen therapy at level 1 for 16 hours day use. This was as a trial to see if it improved things and to help her organs.
Fast forward 3.5 years and my mother is still on said oxygen. However after a recent hospitalization which was possibly due to an infection (she had really swollen legs) she has been on oxygen 24 hours a day. Since being discharged 3 weeks back she is really struggling. She has constant heart palpitations especially after waking. Could be anxiety related she has had that before but keeps saying it’s different. Also as soon as she walks she is out of breath and gets heart palpitations, while using Oxygen at level 1.
Things have escalated so quickly, 2 months ago she was driving around shopping etc. now she can’t go up her own stairs even while using oxygen. We have an appointment booked in with the specialist since March this year but it is only in December! That’s how long it takes to see the only person available
Does anyone know why her heart palpitations are so bad, and what could help with them? Should she be on so much oxygen? What I don’t quite get she was ok before starting oxygen therapy and now she is 24/7 dependant on it. It seemed to of made things worse than better and why didn’t they stop the trial after 6 months 3 years ago?
Her current medication list is as follows:
-Pantoprazole 20mg gastro 8 AM and 6PM
-Furosemide 20mg 2 each morning on empty stomach
-Sertraline 50mg 2 each morning
-Cholecalciferol – 800 unit tablets 2 each morning
-Spironolactone – 25mg tablet , ½ each morning
-Ultibro Breezhaler- Inhale 1 capsule a day
-Ventolin 100up dose evohaler
-Lorazepam 1mg ½ Tablet for acute anxiety
Antibiotic – azithromycin 250mg 2 tablets /day (since coming out from hospital) end a day or 2
Salbutamol 0 -2.5mg in 2.5ml nebuliser daily before bed since hospital so 3 weeks