What Can I Do To Help Keep My Lungs Healthy?
Each of these items have a section on this website, click on the link if you want to know more.
1.Do regular physiotherapy.
Airway clearance and keeping active will help your lungs. These activities can help prevent chest infections. They can also help you recover, if you become sick.
Airway clearance is an everyday activity, just like brushing your teeth. Try to think of it as lung hygiene, airway cleaning. Even if you do not have a cough, or large volumes of sputum, physiotherapy will help to prevent the build up of thick and sticky mucus in your lungs.
Some of the physiotherapy techniques recommended are:
2. Practice good infection control.
Germs are small organisms, that people cannot see, that can make them sick. There are certain practices someone with CF, and also those who hang out with people with CF, can do to help minimise the risk of these germs multiplying in your lungs.
It is good to keep an eye on your health, this may be just looking at the colour or amount of sputum you produce, or cough up each day; or being aware of how short of breath you get when running around at school or out on the sporting field. It is also important to check in with your health care team, and monitor your lung function, and all the other components of your CF care regularly.
4. Be mindful of possible complications
There are some complications in CF that may mean you have to change how you do your physiotherapy or change some of your daily regime.