I think I'd take her advice and see the neurologist. It sounds like there are other things going on besides your COPD. Your symptoms aren't consistent with the numbers you're reporting, so your pulmo is looking for other things. That's good. Follow up. Ask her for a referral to a neurologist and once you're done with that. see what happens. There are lots of reasons for people to feel bad, and not all of them have to do with COPD. That's a complicator, but may not be the whole ball game. Go find out.

It's good to know that some of you have been on prednisone for awhile with no major side effects. Unfortunately, eventually, there will be side effects; some of them take longer to develop than others. That said, if regular prednisone is what keeps you breathing, like you, I'd keep on taking it as breathing is certainly preferable to the alternative!

Exercise will certainly do good things for you. Everyone with COPD should be exercising daily, for at least 30 minutes, unless you're confined to your bed. It helps with so many things: amount of O2 you require, ability to avoid getting sick and even if you do get sick, you have more resources to fight off your illness. It does make a huge difference......and might help you get off the prednisone.

Hi, Jean, and thanks for taking the time to answer. I don't know what happened. I just kind of got worse over the last couple of months. Just saw my pulmonary doc a week ago. She said my FEV1 is 70 percent, same as it was in February. Said my lungs are clear. I told her I'm just feeling very bad and suggested maybe trying to switch inhalers. She said no. I asked about prednisone. She said I don't need it. I just think that I have emphysema and because of that I will feel terrible all the time. Inhalers don't seem to help. My 02 sats at her office were 98 percent. I don't know any other numbers from spirometry test. The one thing she did say was that she wanted me to see a neurologist -- something about my muscle not letting my lungs work. I'm really at a loss.

I'm on prednisone 5mg for 6-7 months and will probably be on it forever. No side effects so far

Hope it's not last thing to try as my Dr has me taking 5mg daily. Diloresp helped me alot but I started losing weight so my Dr stopped it.