The holiday season is a time to be surrounded by family and friends.  Cocktail parties and family reunions are common.  Celebrating with your family and friends often means decorating the house and cooking for many people.  While this can be joyous, for patients with pulmonary fibrosis this time of year offers some extra … [Read more...]

Unless you have turned off all your electronic devices, stopped reading the newspaper and have no functioning television then you have probably heard that electronic cigarettes or vaping is really bad for your health.  In fact, there is a small epidemic of users of these products that are getting hospitalized with life-threatening breathing problems.   It … [Read more...]

Difficulty with sleeping is a very common problem.  Hundreds of millions of people around the world struggle with poor sleep quality. The problem is even more common for people with health problems, including lung disease, pulmonary fibrosis and pulmonary hypertension. Insomnia, the technical term for trouble sleeping, can be divided into several categories.  Patients may … [Read more...]

Around the world and especially in America, we are struggling with obesity.  Our diets are high in sugars and our calorie intake exceeds our energy expenditure.  Fast food and sweetened drinks such as cola and now a dizzying array of coffee based drinks prove hard to resist for many.  On this background it may seem surprising that many patients with advanced IPF struggle to … [Read more...]

Winter is upon us.  We rang in the New Year.  Influenza and other respiratory viruses have now made major appearances across America.  For many patients with Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF) this is an anxious time of the year.  Many worry about whether their lung disease will be able to tolerate the additional stress of a viral respiratory infection.  Many of my patients … [Read more...]