Caroline Gainer,  —

Caroline Gainer is from West Virginia, the state with the highest rate of COPD in the United States. She was diagnosed with moderate-to-severe COPD in 2013 after a pneumothorax (lung collapse). After two more lung collapses she was diagnosed as severe. She has been very active with the American Lung Association and the COPD Foundation as an advocate for people with lung disease. She hopes that her column, “Life Tethered to a Concentrator,” will inspire others to live their best life with COPD.

Articles by Caroline Gainer

Questioning cascades of care helped me tweak my treatment regimen

About a year ago, I attended a conference that addressed the topic of cascades of care, which an editorial in American Family Physician defined as “a seemingly unstoppable succession of medical services often initiated by an unnecessary test or unexpected result and driven by the desire to avoid even…

This COPD action plan is my weapon against exacerbations

For those of us with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), avoiding exacerbations — or flare-ups — is a top priority. The question is, what tools are available to help us do that? Some of them are cleansing our nasal passages, getting vaccinations, and noticing changes in the…

How a failure ended up being a win for me with COPD

Several months ago, I was selected by the pharmaceutical company Sanofi to be screened for a clinical trial called AERIFY-1. The study, which is being conducted by the global research company Care Access, aims to assess the efficacy, safety, and tolerability of the investigational therapy itepekimab in…

I shouldn’t have to fight so hard to live with COPD

Do you suffer from emotional fatigue? I do. Mayo Clinic describes emotional exhaustion or emotional fatigue as accumulated stress from challenging events. The symptoms can be physical or emotional. I believe most of us felt a degree of this fatigue because of the COVID-19 pandemic, which set off…