My father is 76 years old and has had trouble breathing for a few years now. He only goes to the VA for any health issues. Sorry, but they really don't do much for him, otherwise he would have been diagnosed and on some type of treatment. Can't they see how out of breath he is? He goes for a complete physical on July 7. Truthfully, he is so sick right now, I don't know if we have any time to find out exactly what is going on or time to treat it.

He cannot walk more than two or three steps without stopping to catch his breath. It's always labored breathing and he sleeps a lot. I just called my parent's house and talked to my mom. My dad was in the basement doing laundry at the time. So a few minutes into the conversation I said to my mom, so dad still doing laundry? She said 'he just came upstairs.' and since he always seems to shout out 'hi kid' in the background, I said to my mom, 'I'm going to say hi first this time.' I thought she was just going to say that I said hi, but she gave him the phone before I could stop her. I knew that he had just come up the stairs and would still be out of breath. It took him a few breaths and spits before he could say hello. I tried to do most of the talking so he could catch his breath, but he tried to talk. Well, he started making these sounds that scared me and said 'I'm going to give you back to your mother.' My mom said he had thrown up a bit. His appetite just started to descrease - he didn't eat the steak for dinner.

I probably spent so much time telling you that little story that you are tired of reading to know what my question is. How do you get treatment for someone who is probably ready to be hospitalized but doesn't want to be? I feel like I should go over there right now and insist that he go to the hospital. He did go by ambulance about a year or so ago. He couldn't breath. He was in the hospital for a few days with pnemonia. They asked him if he smoked and he said 'not anymore!' Well, it didn't take him long to start again. My father had gone to a doctor's appointment with my mom once after that hospital stay and the stupid doctor (whom we since 'fired') told my dad that sometimes smoking helps keep the coughing down. yay, thank you dr such-and-such.

He uses a puffer, smokes almost constantly, and gets no exercise. He is almost house-bound unless he knows he only has to walk a few steps and stay put. Father's day he didn't talk much and after sitting for about an hour - was very off balance when he stood up. His right eye is drooped. We noticed that about 3 weeks ago. He said he had something in his eye and was digging it out. I don't think you can make that happen to your eye. It looks like someone is holding it down like when you put eyedrops in. I really don't think he has much time left. He is in pain from other issues - back and legs. He also has diabetes. July 7 seems so far away to be seen by a doctor. Any advice? Thank you so much and God bless us all.

It is extremely difficult to treat a someone with respiratory disease if they continue to smoke. I'm sure your dad has been told that he needs to quit. You can call the doctor and ask him to order your dad nebulizer treatments which would help him breathe easier in addition to his inhalers. I would ask the doctor to order a home health nurse to come to the home and teach your dad how to use the nebulizer and also be able to monitor his repiratory status.
Probably the most important issue is to prevent your dad from becoming malnourished. If he doesn't have the energy to eat, then he needs to get his nutrition in liquid supplements. There are many liquid nutritional supplements to choose from and you can purchase them from Walmart etc. It would be a good idea to contact a registered dietician who can develop a diet plan to meet your dad's nutritional needs, ask the doctor for a referral.

It probably is emphysema because of his smoking, but this could also be heart disease. I have an elderly friend that was being treated for asthma only to find out later that she had a defective heart valve. It is the same symptoms - no appetite, breathlessness, sleeping a lot. She had heart surgery and now she is good as new. She was 82 at the time! I would insist on heart related tests.

I just don't think my father would have any type of surgery. I don't know if he could. He could possibly stop breathing during surgery due to the deteriation of his lungs. Who knows if the VA would even send him for the appropriate tests. It all depends on how much money and what insurance you have.

Your father sounds a lot like my mother who has C OPD and Emphysema. She smoked for 45-50 years and first she lost a ton of weight, and then started getting out of breath from not walking very far. She denied it was anything lung related, wouldn't go to the doctors. I even took her to a clinic, and they told her she had severe lung disease and she fluffed them off. She eventually had a stroke and was taken to the hospital. While the stroke symptoms healed, it made her breathing incredibly worse, and when she came home from the hospital, she never picked up another cigarette, but it was too late. The hospital tends to ignore people with lung disease who smoke. She couldn't hardly move without huffing and puffing. It took me three more months to get her to go into a clinic. We found a great doctor, and he wanted to admit her in the hospital right then (he feared she'd have a heart attack). Even though she agreed to it, she only would stay for three days. It wasn't long enough for them to give her the treatment she needed. They did send her home with oxygen, and a nebulizer, and medications, but they really weren't helping that much because she'd miss them, and she was miserable, and she just sunk and sunk, but refused to go for any other treatment. She wasn't able to shower, and could hardly make it to the bathroom 6 feet away. There were many times I wanted to call 911 and she wouldn't let me. Finally one night, it was so bad, I called. When they took her into the ER, they said that it was taking so much energy for her to breathe that her heart was going to stop if they did not put her on a ventilator. It was just so miserable to watch. She was on a ventilator for about 2 weeks and finally came off it (scary because some people can't get off of it). A lot of breathing treatments followed, and physical therapy at a nursing home rehab. The doctor who was caring for her in the hospital said that he'd be surprised if she lasted 3 days out of the hospital. She has 19% lung function. But, she did last. She made it through 3 weeks at rehab, and could stand up and walk with a walker when she got out. What followed was pulmonary therapy......she did not want to go, I had to drag her. That has made the biggest impact. Now she can walk for 13 minutes on a treadmill. Had she gotten the right treatment to start with, she would have never gone threw all the hell she did, and she'd be a lot better off now. It's almost been a year since I called 911 and she was on the ventilator. You need to get your father help. It's only going to get much worse if he doesn't stop smoking and get the right treatment. It still sounds like there's a lot of hope, but he needs help. It is quite easy to test for breathing problems. Short of a breathing test, a pulse ox tester tells the story, and the doctor just needs to put it on his finger and have him walk. I bought one for my mother. Now if she feels out of breath, at least she can look at the numbers. Your dad needs to see a pulmonary doctor. It's really crucial, or he'll end up on a ventilator and be a lot worse if he doesn't take care of it now. Get him to the doctor or the hospital, someone who will do something. He has to quit smoking. Tell him this story. Good luck to you.

Hi, I appreciate your advice. We thought the reason he could only walk (barely) with a walker was due to low sodium levels. Well, he was 130% which is okay. He can barely walk, he's tired of sitting, lying and being miserable. He was given some meds and sent home. In the hospital, the vascular doctor said they thought he had Bell's Palsy. Later during that same conversation when I told the doctor how when he turned he would fall he said 'sounds like a stroke.' So I said you think he had a stroke? he didn't give me a straight answer. they think it's bell's because there is a clogged cartoid artery on his right side where the eye and mouth droop are. They said if it was a stroke the symptoms would appear on the other side. Well, he went to VA yesterday and the report from the hospital said he had a stroke! Someone in my family thought too late and NO it's not because the diagnosis tells you how to treat the patient. We are worried and fear the only answer is to take him back to the hospital since no one is giving the go-ahead for any special doctors. we are supposed to take him back to the vascular doc in 6 months! If we do take him back to the hospital, I would take him by ambulance because he crawled to the car yesterday to get to the doctor appointment. Thank you again YouAreNotAlone, you really mean what your name says.

Sawbuck: I meant to comment about the stroke symptoms. I am not a doctor, but I've seen mild strokes in family members a number of times, and it sure sounds like one. A stroke can happen on either side. It doesn't sound like the VA Hospital is very thorough at all. My mother had also started falling down between the stroke and her resistance to get help for her lung disease. She had a series of mini strokes, which caused her voice to change, and you could see the muscles on her face drop. It actually changed her personality in some ways. After she was discharged from the hospital, she was just gasping for air most the time, and many times, she fell. However, since last year, after the ventilator, she hasn't fallen once. But she got so weak before that, she would fall off her chair. About a month and a half ago, she had another mini stroke. When this happened, she lost a lot of her eyesight, and could not form thoughts into words for about an hour. Then it went away. I took her to the doctors and he put her on plavix (which makes your blood slippery). When they ultra-sounded her arteries, he said they were 40-60% blocked, but they do not intervene until they are 70% blocked. The plavix has stopped the strokes for now and she's doing a lot better. My father is diabetic, and that in itself really hardens the arteries. With your father having the breathing problems, and the stroke, with the diabetes, it is really even more urgent that he get the right kind of care now. It will not get better on it's own, only worse. My mother was 76 when she went on the ventilator, btw. She now regrets not getting the right care before she did. She knows her life would be much easier now had she done that. Your father should have Medicare, right? He really needs to see a competent doctor or go to a major hospital. It doesn't sound like he's gotten that so far. There is a lady who I've met at my mom's pulmonary therapy. She had the same problem, and when she sought help, the doctor she had was a quack. He discharged her from the hospital with 5 days of medication, and when she ran out, she called him, and he told her he'd call in a prescription. This poor woman called the pharmacy all night, while she was getting sicker and sicker. He never called it in. She got so bad, couldn't breathe and her blood pressure was about 220/130, and her husband called 911, and she ended up getting some competent help (but it really messed her up, and she was in a wheelchair for about a year). She's come from being in a wheelchair to now driving herself to therapy. It's important to get the right help. It doesn't sound like that's what your dad is getting, and it's not all that uncommon, so you have to push until you find it. Can he go to another hospital? His Medicare should pay for that. They really need to test his pulse ox to see how much oxygen saturation is in his blood. I don't understand why they haven't done that simple thing, at least. Getting short of breath walking up the stairs is the first sign of it my mother had. Then she couldn't lay down and breathe, so she slept in the chair all the time. Then she couldn't walk more than ten feet at a time, and it kept getting worse and worse. Now she can walk up the stairs because she's had the right treatment. It's slow, but she does it fine. Maybe you could call a major hospital for a referral if you don't want to take him into ER. It's best if you can get a good thorough competent doctor, and then have your dad admitted, but if all else fails, then the ER, but you are right to call 911 because you get a lot better care when the ambulance brings them in. You could also take him to a clinic, if you know of any good ones. A caring competent doctor there could admit him, and you can "walk in" to the clinic without an appointment. Good luck, let me know how it's going!

I am feeling very helpless. I don't know what call to make on the situation. He has a doctor's appointment on Wednesday next week with my mother's doctor. He saw the VA doc yesterday and they basically took a medication inventory. The doc barely looked at him. He is sleeping a lot, barely eating, the only complaint he's made is that he is tired of not being able to get around.

You say the blockage they would do something when it was 70%? My dad's is 70 - 79 % from one doc and another doc (vascular) told us the same day it was 75% blocked and when it reached 80 they'd intervene. I think I said in my previous post that they finally told us that they were hoping in 6 months when he was scheduled to get it checked again that he would be strong enough for the procedure.

He is not getting better and I don't know what to do. Should I call 911 and get him in or wait for something worse to happen? They may say he didn't need to come in or that we needed to do something else.

If you think he can make it until Wednesday, and your mother has a good doctor, that may be a good option depending on his condition. It sounds though, that waiting might not be a good idea. I am not a big fan of ER having been there so many times with my dad (at least 30). Sometimes you get great doctors and quick care, and sometimes you don't. It's kind of a crap shoot (you have to be there with him and really keep your eyes open and make sure they do everything needed). Sometimes ER is so overloaded, that you wait forever. However, if you feel it needs to be dealt with this weekend, and he's going to be taken somewhere other than the VA hospital (don't take him there), then I'd call 911 and tell them he's having difficulty breathing, sleeping a lot, and barely eating (not eating is really bad with diabetics). Go with him, and make sure everything is communicated to the ER doctors (you may be there for 12 hours). Stay until he is admitted, and in a room, and you have gone over everything with the admitting nurse, including his medications. I've had really good experiences with ER too, but I try to avoid it if I can just because you never know what day it is going to be excellent, or not. If you decide to call 911, before you do, make a list of all his medications, get his insurance cards ready, and try to get him to eat. Sometimes it's hard to get any food for quite a while when you go into ER, and it's better to go in not hungry. Also, make a list of all his symptoms and what's happened, so you can clearly answer the Paramedics questions when they arrive, because it's stressful and upsetting. When they came to take my mom, the first thing they did was check her oxygen saturation. It was a low 77, and they started pumping heavy oxygen in her, and it brought it up for the short term. I can't make the decision for you, but from what you are telling me, I would probably call 911 and get him somewhere where they can help him. Good luck......let me know. My heart goes out to you.

Sawbuck, one more thing: If you decide to call 911 and he is admitted, make sure they put "fall precautions" on him. Make sure that it's mandatory that he not get up to use the bathroom, etc., without assistance. My father fell in the hospital and broke his hip (right before he was to be discharged). The hosptial floors are slippery, and they are much more dangerous than falling at home. Good Luck!