It’s not easy living with a long- term health condition like COPD but one local charity is there to help. Julie Blackburn meets the people behind Breathe Easy Isle of Man.

Imagine getting out of breath carrying out the smallest of daily tasks like putting on your socks or cleaning your teeth. That’s the sort of impact that chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) can have on people’s lives.

COPD describes a group of lung conditions that make it difficult to empty air out of the lungs because airways have been narrowed.

It usually develops because of long-term damage to the lungs from breathing in a harmful substance, for example if you are, or have been, a smoker.

A national charity, the British Lung Foundation, has been set up to support sufferers and make information available to them. It held events around the UK to raise awareness of the condition on World COPD day last week. The local arm of the charity, Breathe Easy Isle of Man, also marked the day with an information stand at Noble’s Hospital.

Julie-Anne Osland and her sister, Lisa Ward, were helping to man the stand.

They became involved with Breathe Easy through their mother, Viv Osland, who developed COPD 10 years ago. Viv is treasurer of Breathe Easy but was too ill to attend on the day.

Julie-Anne said: ’My mum gets puffed out brushing her teeth and she can only walk a very short distance otherwise she has to be in a wheelchair.

’She has to use oxygen pretty much 24/7.

’She uses a monitor which goes on her finger which measures how much oxygen your blood is carrying. If my mum drops below a certain level then she’ll up her oxygen.’

Brenda Skillicorn, also a COPD sufferer, explained that the restrictions it places on a patients’s daily life can by very isolating.

She went on: ’Much of the support offered by Breathe Easy is social and emotional: we have meetings once a month to help with the depression and isolation that can affect people with chronic lung disease.

’People need some support. It’s very important to look after the whole person.’

It sounds unlikely but Brenda went on to say that exercise really does help, especially when it’s done on a regular basis.

She said: ’The physiotherapist sets a rehabilitation programme and once a month we have a T’ai Ch’i class - it’s gentle exercise and very good for the breathing.’

Brenda has had COPD for 5-6 years and she recalled: ’It does come on slowly: I found myself getting out of breath and not recovering from a chest infection; like many other people. I did smoke then but I don’t now.

’You can look at it very positively or you can look at it very negatively and that’s where we try and support people. You can’t help repair the problem but you can help them to cope with it.’

Breathe Easy Isle of Man currently has around 60 people on its mailing list but says that there are many more people with the disease who haven’t yet reached the stage of needing support with coping with it.

Julie-Anne said that the primary objective of their World COPD Day event was to inform: ’If we also raise a little bit of money, that’s great, but it’s more about raising awareness so that people can recognise symptoms and go to their doctors to get help if needed.

’A lot of people don’t even know they’re living with lung conditions, like sleep apnoea or COPD: it can happen at any time in life.’

Breathe Easy Isle of Man, which had its fifth anniversary earlier this year, does also raise funds to help with some of the practical problems caused by COPD.

Two years ago they raised £3,500 to purchase a portable travel concentrator which enables patients using oxygen to go on holiday or for days out. This is kept at Noble’s Hospital and available for patients to borrow when they are travelling.

Talking about COPD, Brenda said that getting the right information, along with practical and emotional support from Breathe Easy Isle of Man has helped her to stay positive:

’I proactively manage this.

’You don’t want to go around wearing it as a badge. To all intents and purposes you just get on with your life.’