A lung attack is a sign that your chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) has taken a dramatic turn for the worse. However, doctors often mistake this for a less wellbeing-threatening acute infection. Between 5 and 20% of people who have a lung attack die within a year after being hospitalised for it, which is a similar rate to those whose wellness is affected by a heart attack. COPD can occur if you’ve had prolonged exposure to cigarette smoke or other inhaled irritants, and presents with symptoms such as shortness of breath, coughing, wheezing and mucus or phlegm production. When you have a lung attack, these symptoms can worsen in a matter of hours or days.
Therefore, if you do have COPD, you need to take active steps to reduce your risk of a lung attack, which means quitting smoking and taking the appropriate medication. This is according to the Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease Association (Singapore), who presented the message in November last year, in the wake of World COPD Day. Dr Ong Kian Chung, president of the COPD Association (Singapore) and a respiratory physician at Mount Elizabeth Medical Centre, said that 19% of the country’s residents, whose wellness was affected by COPD, died a year after hospitalisation.
So if lung attacks are so deadly, why don’t we know more about them? Up until recently, lung attacks weren’t thought to be as deadly as they actually are. However, Professor Neil Barnes, a consultant respiratory physician at the London Chest Hospital and The Royal London Hospital in Britain, warns that once you have a lung attack, your risk of having another one increases 2.5 times. He adds that an attack is often triggered by a chest infection, common cold or other infections of the respiratory tract, or even for no apparent reason, but it is often mistaken for being an acute infection, rather than a flare-up of a progressive lung condition.