It’s all a matter of when you are actually diagnosed and the methods used to make the diagnosis.  My sister was diagnosed a week before she passed away.  For years she had been variously diagnosed as having bronchitis, pneumonia, asthma, etc.  She walked into the hospital and never walked out.  A lung biopsy confirmed IPF.

I was diagnosed 11… Read more

I’m convinced that the 3-5 years can be misleading.  For many people, there have been years and years of bouts of shortness of breath, dyspnea, coughing, etc., and the person is diagnosed with pneumonia, the flu, bronchitis, or some other respiratory illness. Many suffer for a decade or more with those symptoms until they actually see… Read more

I, too, have started to have thick plugs of mucous. I usually spend a good bit of time in the morning coughing up the crap. I cannot imagine what it is like for someone who is frail and who does not have the ability to do deep coughing. I have an appointment with my pulmonologist next week and I’m sure she will say that this is the… Read more

I am 71 yrs old, a retired registered nurse.  I had VATS (Video Assisted Thoracotomy) and a diagnosis of IPF in 2018, not sure why my pulmonologist chose that instead of a bronchoscopy. VATS is a very invasive surgery and very painful as rated by the NIH. The surgeon must go through your ribs to get the lung specimen, this involves damage to… Read more