Pulmonary fibrosis

Let the world know about pulmonary fibrosis

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On Rare Disease Day back in February 2013, we announced our partnership with Boehringer Ingelheim to help enhance the online idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) community. And by September 7th that same year, the community had grown to just over 1,000 people. Today, on the next edition of Global Pulmonary Fibrosis Awareness Day, the community stands 2,500+ members strong, making it the largest online gathering of IPF patients anywhere in the world. In just a year, the community has almost tripled in size, and everyone is sharing about their experiences so that other patients, doctors and researchers can learn more about life with IPF. But what exactly is IPF? Pulmonary fibrosis (PF) is a medical condition that causes lung tissue to thicken, stiffen and scar over a period of time, and “idiopathic” means “no known cause.” According to the Coalition for Pulmonary Fibrosis, there are over 100,000 Americans living with IPF at any given time, and an estimated 40,000 will die from the condition every year. And besides a complete lung transplant, there is no known cure for IPF.1 Today, the Pulmonary Fibrosis Foundation (PFF) is encouraging everyone to educate, share, fundraise and start conversations about IPF. You can learn more about …

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The Patient Voice- PF member Bryan shares his story

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  Since we announced #dataforgood back in March, many PatientsLikeMe members have been sharing about why they donate their own health experiences. Becca (fibromyalgia) and Ed (Parkinson’s) already shared their stories, and now we’re hearing from Bryan, an idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) member. Check out his video above. Miss Becca or Ed’s? Watch them here. Share this post on twitter and help spread #dataforgood.

“Gee, doc, ya think?” – Barbara speaks about her diagnosis and life with IPF

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PatientsLikeMe member Barbara (CatLady51) recently shared about her journey with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) in an interview with us, and she spoke about everything from the importance of taking ownership of managing her condition to how she hopes to “turn on the light bulb” by donating her personal health data. Read her full interview about living with IPF below. Some PF members report having difficulty finding a diagnosis – was this the case with you? What was your experience like?  My journey started back in 2005, when after my first chest cold that winter, I was left with severe coughing spells and shortness of breath. An earlier chest x-ray didn’t indicate any issues, so I was referred to a local community-based respirologist (what we call a pulmonologist here in Canada) who wasn’t concerned with my PFT results. I also had a complete cardiovascular workup, again with no alarming results. Then, in 2008, I had another chest cold. Growing up in a family of smokers and being the only non-smoker, I seemed to have managed to miss having chest colds, but 2005 and 2008 were definite exceptions. Again, a normal x-ray, another visit to the respirologist and another PFT that didn’t …

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Patients as Partners: The Perceived Medical Condition Self-Management Scale questionnaire results

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Back at the beginning of April, we launched a new blog series called Patients as Partners that highlights the results and feedback PatientsLikeMe members give to questionnaires on our Open Research Exchange (ORE) platform. This time around, we’re sharing the results of the Perceived Medical Condition Self-Management Scale (PMCSMS), a health measure that looks at how confident people are in managing their own conditions. More than 1,500 members from 9 different condition communities on PatientsLikeMe took part. They worked with our research partner Ken Wallston from Vanderbilt University to make the tool the best it can be. (Thank you to everyone that participated! This is your data doing good.) Check out the PMCSMS results and keep your eyes peeled for more ORE questionnaire results as we continue the series on the blog. What’s ORE all about again? PatientsLikeMe’s ORE platform gives patients the chance to not only check an answer box, but also share their feedback on each question in a researcher’s health measure. They can tell our research partners what makes sense, what doesn’t, and how relevant the overall tool is to their condition. It’s all about collaborating with patients as partners to create the most effective tools for measuring disease.

“Pay it forward.” Following up with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis patient and PatientsLikeMe member Lori

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  This is Lori’s third interview on the PatientsLikeMe blog! She’s been sharing her journey with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (a rare lung disease) with all of our followers here, along with her real-world health experiences on her PatientsLikeMe profile. Since the last time we caught up with her, Lori has lost 70 lbs., has made the transplant list and is playing what she calls ‘the waiting waltz.’ Check out the entire interview below where she talks about ‘life on the list’ and what inspires her to donate her health data. And don’t forget to check out Lori’s own blog called Reality Gasps. Thank you Lori for continuing to share and inspire! If you missed one of her previous interviews you can find those here.     You share a lot about reaching your weight loss goal (70 lbs! That’s awesome!). Can you describe what exercise means to someone living with IPF? And some of the other ways you achieved your goal? For someone living with IPF, exercise isn’t about pushing yourself to go farther, faster or harder — it’s about endurance. Pulmonary Rehab is always focused on doing whatever you’re doing for as long as you can. That’s because endurance …

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“Life is good” – PatientsLikeMe community member John_R speaks about his new life after being diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis

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Several people in the PatientsLikeMe community use the phrase “new normal” after being diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis (PF), and PF member John_R doesn’t’ think his new normal is all bad. This month, he chatted with us about getting diagnosed with PF, bringing oxygen to the workplace, and how living with his Sweetie keeps him focused on the positive moments of his journey. You were recently diagnosed with PF in 2013 – can you tell us a little about your diagnosis experience? I was initially diagnosed with PF back in 2002 via a CAT scan with contrast. Around 2000, some haziness was seen on an x-ray, and my doctor recommended that I see a pulmonologist. I was getting ready to move to Texas, so I waited until I settled down and found a new GP. It was after my first physical with my new doctor that I was sent to see a pulmonologist. He sent me for a series of CAT scans from April of ‘02 to Jan ’03. The first scan indicated “There are several patchy areas of infiltrate identified peripherally in both lungs. These are identified at the anterior and lateral upper lobes as well as in both lower lobes. Mild patchy infiltrate …

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PatientsLikeMe in real life: reporting back from the PFF Summit

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Dave, Rishi, and I spent a few days last month in sunny La Jolla, California – site of the biennial PFF Summit. Well, La Jolla is usually sunny… this year it was unseasonably cold and rainy! Nevertheless, not even the nasty weather could dampen the enthusiasm of more than 500 clinicians, researchers and (most importantly!) patients and caregivers who turned out from all over the world to meet up and share the latest research on pulmonary fibrosis. The PFF Summit was hosted by the Pulmonary Fibrosis Foundation (PFF), who we met a few months after announcing the launch of the PatientsLikeMe IPF Community. We were very enthusiastic to help support the PFF’s work by sponsoring and contributing to the research exhibition at the summit. While I spoke with patients, caregivers and clinicians about our open patient registry and the history of PatientsLikeMe, Dave and Rishi learned about the latest advances in PF research and shared our study of the impact of PF on patients’ sleep. If you haven’t heard about it yet, here’s what we learned about PF patients and sleep: A total of 66 IPF patients reported having or possibly having sleeping problems, and 47% of these had sleeping …

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“We can and will do better” – An interview on pulmonary fibrosis with Dr. Jeff Swigris

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Just this past month, a few members of the PatientsLikeMe Team (Arianne, Dave and Rishi) traveled to La Jolla, CA for the Pulmonary Fibrosis Foundation Summit. It was quite the mixed crowd (with patients, clinicians and researchers), and it gave them (and everyone at PatientsLikeMe) a chance to learn more about pulmonary fibrosis (PF) from different points of view. Thank you to everyone who stopped by our exhibit booth and for sharing your experiences. While they were there, the team had the chance to interview Dr. Jeff Swigris. He’s an Associate Professor of Medicine at National Jewish Health in Denver and has been working with PF patients for almost two decades. He’s published over 65 articles on interstitial lung disease (ILD), most on IPF, and he has a special interest in Patient Reported Outcomes (PROs) and patients’ Quality of Life (QOL). Dr. Swigris is also the Director of the Participation Program for Pulmonary Fibrosis (P3F), an online resource for patients, caregivers or anyone interested in learning more about PF. On the P3F website, patients and caregivers can also find out about studies they can currently enroll in. Right now, the P3F is currently enrolling for a study that aims to …

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PatientsLikeMe creates largest open registry of IPF patients in the world

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Community One of Website’s Fastest Growing; Reveals Real-World Picture Of Daily Life With the Rare Lung Disease CAMBRIDGE, Mass.— August 22, 2013—In a few short months, PatientsLikeMe has created the largest open registry of idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) patients online, and some of the most current patient-reported data on the disease. The information the community has shared is providing new clues about the condition and giving a rare look into what it is like to live daily with a disease that has no known cause or cure. According to the National Institutes of Health, pulmonary fibrosis causes scarring in deep lung tissue over time, making it harder for the lungs to move oxygen into the bloodstream. Cases where the cause of the disease is unknown are called IPF and usually affect middle-aged and older adults, more typically men, and an estimated 100,000 people in the United States. The company’s focus on IPF accelerated earlier this year when it announced a collaboration with Boehringer Ingelheim to enhance its IPF patient community. Now more than 900 IPF patients use PatientsLikeMe to monitor their health and share information about their experiences with the condition. They can also connect with others like them and …

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“Retooling my attitude.” An interview with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis patient & PatientsLikeMe member Lori

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As part of our “Spotlighted Blogger” series, we’re talking with people who are sharing their personal health experiences to help raise awareness of disease and change healthcare for good. For our latest interview, we’re talking with Lori, an idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) patient who started blogging about her journey back in October 2011. Her blog is called Reality Gasps and she balances stories of her daily struggles with dashes of humor that can make anyone smile. If Lori sounds familiar to some of you, it’s because she’s also part of the PatientsLikeMe community.  She recently took some time to talk with us about why she started blogging, the difficulty in finding a diagnosis and how connecting with others has positively impacted her life. What made you decide to start blogging about your experience? What’s been the community response? When I was first diagnosed with IPF, I started researching online (like everyone else). The medical sites gave me an idea of what was happening to my body, but they said nothing about how to live with this disease – and when I really thought about it, that’s what I needed. So, I turned to blogs written by other patients and caregivers. They were …

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