Will I Miss Out on Significant Life Events?

Please accept my apologies if this post is a little bit of a downer. One of the things I promised myself when I started writing this column was that I would be honest and include the good, the bad, and the ugly about idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF.) There…

Invisible illnesses are conditions patients have that are not obvious when looking at them. Often people with an invisible illness face a lot of prejudice; others accuse them of faking, lying or exaggerating their illness. People just don’t fully understand what patients with invisible illnesses are going through.

Patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) who rapidly gain weight may have a poorer prognosis than those with lesser weight gains, particularly if they never smoked. Researchers also linked to poorer survival a notable decline in lung function with one year, and a jump in the number of hospitalizations for airway problems. The study,…

https://vimeo.com/167741642 In this Information Television Network film, the series Healthy Body, Healthy Mind looks at the challenges doctors and patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) face on a daily basis. Read our list of five questions you should ask your doctor about pulmonary fibrosis. The film explains that there…

Confo Therapeutics has received two multi-million-dollar research grants, one to identify new G-protein coupled receptor (GPCR) agonists to treat fibrosis and another to develop new applications for the company’s proprietary Confo technology. Flanders Innovation & Entrepreneurship (VLAIO) gave Confo a two-year €1.6 million ($1.7 million) grant for research into the GPCR…

A while ago I was feeling tired and found myself debating whether I wanted to put out the energy to get together with some friends. Going out and lugging my oxygen around is a lot of effort, and it wears me out. It hit me that this was…

Everyone suffers from stress from time to time but when you have a chronic disease, stress not only adds to your everyday burden but can often exacerbate the symptoms of your condition. While we can’t avoid stress altogether, there are ways that we help ourselves relax more and not let things…

There is tons of literature that endorses the idea of connecting with others for support when you’re faced with a chronic illness, such as idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF). I know that literature very well because I thoroughly examined it throughout the writing of my masters thesis this…

We only get one set of lungs so it’s imperative that we look after them. This is even more important with diseases that directly affect the lungs as it could help slow down the progression of the disease and ease the symptoms.  To help you take the best possible care of your lungs,…

Higher levels and activity of an enzyme, called urokinase plasminogen activator (uPA), were associated with fibrosis in lung tissue of patients with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF). This suggests that uPA may be a target in treating lung fibrosis. The study, “The fibrogenic actions of lung fibroblast-derived urokinase: a potential drug target…