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Posted 10/20/2011 6:52 PM (GMT -8)
Hello all!

 

My name is Emily, I am 21 years old, and I have CF. The main point of this post is to ask a question: Is it safe for people with Cystic Fibrosis and for people with COPD (Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease) to be together on a regular basis? I know as a CF patient that it is dangerous for CFer's to be around each other due to passing on infections and bacterias, but I was wondering if it was the same between CF and COPD. COPD patients arre also very prone to respiratory infections and bacterias, so it would make sense to me that it may be a risk to be together too often.

 

Now I ask this because I just found out that my new boyfriend in fact has COPD, and is often very sick during the winter from flare ups. So now I am wondering: Is this going to be a poblem for the both of us?

 

I have a doctor appointment in a week and a half and i'll ask, but I just wanted to see if anyone had some insight.

 

Thanks!

Emily 

Posted 10/31/2011 3:32 AM (GMT -8)
Hi Emily,

Sorry for the late reply, been trying to reply for 3 days but something always crops up as I'm replying meaning I have to quickly close off and leave the house.

I believe it is safe to be around people with COPD. CF infections are usually CF specific. They have had to mutate to be able to grow in CF lungs, even psuedomonas. The regular strain of Psuedo would make us feel a bit icky, but could be quickly eradicated. It's why they are so big on cross-infection now, as they realised the mutated versions of the bugs that could grow in CF lungs were spreading between us all and growing stronger. The way they've mutated though means they can only grow in really sticky situations. I think there would be a risk if they were an ex-smoker and had lung disease from smoking. This is because smoking stop the CFTR protein working so well, creating a similar sticky environment. This is pretty new research, but they're now looking at how they've treated smoking related lung disease and CF and they might be able to cross-research ad come up with something better for us all.

We have a support worker who works on our CF ward, with pretty bad COPD. I would hope if she was a risk to us the CF docs would have picked up on that.

Hope this helps, and hope they can find a way to treat your boyfriend.

Gem xx

Posted 2/14/2015 1:29 PM (GMT -8)
There are several strains of bacteria (staph, H. influenzae, and a few others) that love to colonize CF and COPD lungs. Yes, the infections can be passed back and forth, especially if the person with COPD is in an acute phase.
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