I will be writing a two-part series on Pulmonary Fibrosis. In this section of the series, I am going to discuss what the disease is- and why I am writing about it.

" Pulmonary Fibrosis involves scarring of the lung. Gradually, the air sacs of the lungs become replaced by fibrotic tissue. When the scar forms, the tissue becomes thicker causing an irreversible loss of the tissue's ability to transfer oxygen into the bloodstream." - The Pulmonary Fibrosis Foundation

The symptoms include:

Shortness of breath; particularly with exertion, chronic dry, hacking cough, fatigue and weakness, discomfort in the chest, loss of appetite, and rapid weight loss.

At this time, there is no "cure" for PF, and many people are afflicted with it. Over 5 million worldwide, and 200,000 in the United States- although according to the Pulmonary Fibrosis Foundation, these numbers could be significantly higher due to misdiagnosis.

Less than 3 weeks ago, my husband's grandmother died due to complications of Pulmonary Fibrosis. I had known her for over 12 years, and she was the sweetest, most loving and honest person you could meet. She was deeply religious, but never let that get in the way of a relationship with her grandson.

We first learned that she had Pulmonary Fibrosis about 4 years ago, but the doctor did not seem too worried about this at the time. However, in the last year her condition had gotten steadily worse due to several factors. She had recently been prescribed a medicine for osteoporsis called "Boniva" by a local doctor. This doctor decided to give her Boniva in not a 1 month shot as noted on their website, but a 3 month dose in once visit.

Shortly after, she started having trouble breathing and broke out in a rash; yet the doctor said this was normal, nothing to worry about. Suddenly, she needed to be on oxygen because every time she got up to use the restroom, she would go into coughing spells so severe that she would almost faint. She also had extreme pain from the coughing that resulted in her being put on Vicodin, then Morphine. She already had heart disease and was diabetic, things seemed to just go downhill drastically.

Two weeks later, we found out from a nurse that Boniva causes some patients to develop asthma because they are allergic to the medicine. She had developed it, and because of this her Pulmonary Fibrosis was made much worse than before. All the coughing caused more and more scarring in her lungs.

Eventually she was on the maximum amount of oxygen allowed, heavy doses of liquid morphine and hospice. Although we all thought she would pull through, she succumbed to PF, and passed away peacefully in her sleep one morning.

Before my grandmother in-law died, we researched everything we could on the internet that might help her. We saw many promising products, but none of them arrived quickly enough to help her.

Some of these medicines included Neprinol, Vitalzym, Serrapeptase and Nattokinase.

Please look forward to the next part of this series, in which I will go into the medicines listed above, and other remedies listed on the internet that are supposed to provide relief for PF patients.

Thank you for reading my page, and I hope someone finds this information helpful! - Ms Sooz.