Bless you. Rough I should say so.

I have a friend here that I went through pulmonary rehab with. She had the valves put. She is doing well with them. I was a candidate for them, but I opted for robotic surgery. I haven't been on oxygen in months and months. I had the surgery last October 1.. I was in the hospital 45 days. I was in ICU 15 of those days at two different times. Not gonna lie, it was rough, but so worth it! I had it done at Houston Methodist Hospital. It is life changing.

Pneumonia is a form of exacerbation that they can put a name to; they know what caused it. Exacerbations aren't necessarily painful, but they can be very debilitating whatever the cause. What are you calling an exacerbation? The definition is a worsening of your usual COPD symptoms that requires medical intervention (antibiotics, pred) to get rid of. So it could be a bad cough; more mucous, increasing sob, needing more O2 to do ordinary things......pretty much anything. Generally not pain, unless coughing becomes really painful, which is common.

Pneumonia as a side effect of getting the valves is generally a one-time thing. Usually people don't have re-curring bouts of pneumonia: that indicates that you didn't get rid of whatever bug caused the pneumonia the first time. The pneumonthorax is the painful thing that can happen. The lung collapses and they have to put in a drain; that's painful.

Jean, question as I know nothing about this...if there is any possibility of pneumonia, isn't that more painful than the COPD exacerbations which have been awful for me. And, how frequent are they?

The Zephyr valves have been available in the US for about three years and there have been many procedures conducted at centers around the country. Many of them have been very successful; you'll have to ask each center what their success rate is and what they consider a success to really evaluate the data. There are some major side effects, specifically pneumothorax and pneumonia as a result; some centers have far more of these than others, up to 40%. Generally people have recovered from these and had positive experiences with the valves. Overall, I think most people who've had the valves would be positive, but the procedure isn't without risk.