I wrote several posts connecting COPD with several comorbidities that commonly occur and at one time proposed that COPD causes changes in the body as a whole. A recent blog from LPT Medical makes the same point. This caused me to think about my treatment and how my doctors seem to be treating the disease. 

I must say that my diagnostician seems to be considering the whole body and how conditions work together and with the medications to cause other problems such as corticosteroids and osteoporosis. I do think that it is easier for her to do so because she sees the big picture and she only sees me once or twice a year. 

My PC sees the big picture, but sometimes gets bogged down in the nitty-gritty. This is also understandable and sometimes I need him to focus on the nitty-gritty at hand. 

My pulmonologist does seem to focus on the lungs but follows the heart-lung connection very closely. Therefore I am still on oxygen 24/7. My heart rate increases drastically when the oxygen is removed. 

The LPT Blog posts makes many great comparisons that I am sure you will want to read for yourself.  Why You Should Think of COPD as a Systemic Disease and Not a Localized Issue (lptmedical.com) 

One of the comparisons made in the post is that diabetes is a disease that causes a change in glucose levels and since glucose is used by every cell in the body, diabetes affects the entire body. The same goes for oxygen. All cells use oxygen, so a glitch in the oxygen-producing organs will affect the entire body.  

We need to become well versed in the conditions that are affected by the medications that we take. We also need to make sure that our physicians are addressing our needs and treating us as a whole organism.