My 84 year old mom has had COPD for 9 years and is 84. She did water aerobics and drove until 3 months ago. She had a bad flare up. Her pulmonologist says she has PH based on an echocardiogram. He sent her to a cardiologist yesterday and the cardiologist said she could not help because it is a lung problem. She told us to go back to the pulmonologist. He said to have a heart catherization. My mom is not well enough or willing to go through a catherization. What do we do? She is very fatigued… read more
@A MyCOPDTeam Member Are there any doctors around that specialize in heart & lung? I changed doctors & started going to Univ of Tennessee for pulmonary care and the dr that I see is a heart & lung board certified doctor and I'm VERY happy with him so far.
You might give her time to think things through. Then when she reaches her decision, support her. She and her body probably know what's best.
She's getting the standard LABA/ICS combination along with a LAMA. That's standard medication for someone like your Mom. You could ask her pulmonologist about the possibility of roflumilast or azithromycin taken three times a week, but she doesn't fit the typical requirements. You may simply have to wait and let her get a little better over time, then do the catheterization. Sometimes there just isn't anything except time.
Symbicort, Spireva and 10 mg prednisone which will taper off.
I don't know what she's taking now, so that's a hard question to answer. Tell me what she's taking now and I can give you my opinion.. I'm not a doc, I don't have medical training, I just have 20 years of experience as a COPD patient.