Pulmonary Fibrosis Patients Live in a Constant State of Fear

Sadly, many patients living with a life-threatening illness are likely familiar with a magnitude of feelings, fears, and emotions. There is no instruction manual on how to navigate life-threatening with a lung disease like idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF). I’ll never forget when doctors told me that due to my…

As an ex-college football player, I get goosebumps over the sweet smell of freshly cut grass in the fall — a sign that football season is upon us. It’s too bad that it puts me at risk for a potentially deadly disease: aspergillosis. Aspergillosis is a fungal disease caused…

The first patient was dosed in a Phase 2b clinical trial investigating the safety and effectiveness of Respivant Biosciences’ inhalation therapy candidate RVT-1601 for idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis patients with persistent cough. Respivant Biosciences also has launched a new website — IPFcough.com — to increase awareness about the effects of cough…

An idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) treatment candidate that mimics a tiny RNA molecule lowered the production of key profibrotic proteins and blocked fibrosis development in a mouse model of the disease. The data was presented recently at the 2019 American Thoracic Society (ATS) Conference in Dallas, in a poster titled “…

RaDaR, the catchy new name for the U.S. government-run Rare Diseases Registry Program, aims to help patient advocacy groups with limited resources build their own disease registries. The site was developed by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS), a division of the National Institutes of…

An unfortunate reality of living with a chronic illness is that most people will never fully understand your experience. They can’t understand the complexity of living with a chronic lung disease or other debilitating chronic illnesses. Even when someone else has the same diagnosis as you, their experience likely…

An integral part of my recovery from single-lung transplant surgery is the close monitoring of lab results. My case is even more interesting because I have autoimmune hemolytic anemia (AIHA). Simply explained, my red and white blood cells and platelets are significantly lower than those of someone who…