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Pulmonary Rehabilitation
How many people are engaged in Pulmonary Rehabilitation? What is it exactly, and how do you get hooked up with it? I’m guessing it’s some kind of exercise regiment, you probably hook up with via your Dr. So I probably just answered most of my question, other than how many people here are actively engaged in Pulmonary Rehab.
If that is the case than I am tallying up one more check mark in the “why I need a different Dr.” category.
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2 Replies
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Hi Kristine,
I actually did pulmonary rehab about 4-5 years ago. I had heard about it through an old PH support group so I looked into it. I asked my pulmonary doc and he gave me a referral to enroll into the program. I’m not sure if the program varies, but for me, it was a 6 week program. It was 3 days a week for 6 weeks; about 3 hours each session. The classes were held at one of the medical bldgs at Kaiser. My class had only 6 people. The first half of the class was lectures about different topics. That was helpful because I learned a few things every class. And then the second half was the exercise. Since everyone in the class had different conditions and physical abilities, we had personalized exercises. For me, I had to be in oxygen while exercising. Each exercise we had to monitor our oxygen level and how we felt with the BORG Scale. There were nurses there to assist us if we needed it. It was very professional and overall helpful. I learned a lot during the 6 weeks and was able to exercise. But the only downfall was that, for me personally, I was exhausted halfway through the program. My body didn’t like exercising 3 days a week. I was tired and sort of weak on the off-days. I just wanted to rest for a whole week. Hahaha. I powered through and was glad I had the chance to experience this structured rehab related to me and my health. I did learn a lot so I regret nothing.
🙂
Diane
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Hi Diane,
This is very helpful information. Although I have never done Pulmonary rehab, I know a lot of people who did and also did cardiac rehab. From what they have told me, it is along the same lines of lecture, and then supervised exercise. I think doing something like this would be great just to get a sense of what is safe for you to do when you exercise. I wish I did this because for me it was mostly about monitoring how I’m feeling and using my own pulse ox during exercise. There are definitely some days where I probably push it a little too hard and can feel the effects of being way over tired ! I would take advantage of it and do it if your doctor offers this to anyone!
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