All of them can make you feel breathless. Doctors use stages to describe how severe your COPD is. This system is called the GOLD staging or grading system. Your grade will affect what treatment you ...

COPD symptoms vary depending on the amount of lung damage that has occurred due to inhaled substances, most commonly smoking. Symptoms are usually slow to develop and often don’t appear until there’s ...

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) happens when you’ve had long-term exposure to certain irritants. These irritants eventually damage your lungs and airways and make it increasingly ...

While COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) symptoms may start out as mild to moderate — with episodes of difficulty breathing that come and go — over time, COPD tends to get worse, and many ...

Lindsay Curtis is a health & medical writer in South Florida. She worked as a communications professional for health nonprofits and the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Medicine and Faculty of ...