Learn More About Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease
What is chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD)?
COPD is a lung disease in which the lung is damaged and it becomes very hard to breathe. When the airways and air sacs become damaged, it can be difficult to get air in and out. In COPD, the airways and air sacs lose their shape and become floppy. Less air goes in or out because the air sacs or airways lose their elasticity, the walls between the air sacs are destroyed, or the excess mucus that is produced clogs the airways.
What causes COPD?
Most cases of COPD develop after repeatedly breathing in irritants that damage the lungs and airways. However, the most common cause of COPD is smoking. Most people with COPD are smokers or former smokers. Other things that can irritate the lungs include working around chemicals and breathing in the fumes, working in a dusty area over many years, or heavy exposure to air pollution.
Participate and Take Control
If you have COPD, there are healthy choices you can make on a daily basis to help manage your condition. Learn how to identify and act on those healthy choices by accessing our COPD Disease Management Program. Help is available for BCBSNM members — call toll-free 1-866-252-8106 for more information about our disease management programs.
Tools and Information
Some of the information below is available in Adobe Acrobat PDF format. If you need Acrobat Reader, download it free of charge from Adobe's site.
- How to Cope with Asthma flier (PDF 32K)
- Asthma: Are You in Control? flier (PDF 54K)
- COPD information via the Personal Health Manager: BCBSNM members can log in to Blue Access for Members to access extensive information on COPD.
- COPD information on other health-related Web sites*:
*We do our best to ensure that the information on the other health-related Web sites listed above is useful, but can't be responsible for the content of those sites or any information you may take from them (please read our legal disclaimer). When you click on a choice above, it will open in a new window so that you can explore that site without having to leave here. When you are through visiting the other site, you can close that window and return to the BCBSNM site.
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