Is there any kind of honest consensus of opinion on the true nature of emphysema?
I'm becoming exhausted by seemingly diametrically opposed views on the disease. One minute august teaching hospitals and HHS Bodies describe the disease as variously the 3rd, 4th or 6th .." case of DEATH in America.". The next I read patients rarely die of the disease but of attendant commodities .." with it, not from it."
Equally frustrating is the beacon of hope that with earnest commitment to a rehabilitation programme , the progress of emphysema can all but be halted and maintained at a set level, so that further decline of lung capacity, reflects only the predicted ageing process common to everyone. Contradicting this position is the often stated description of the disease as ..." chronic, progressive and degenerative"...too little, too late.
Given that the disease has now become my Marla Singer and I'm finding it increasingly difficult to fake good health, to make it, I'd love to know,