My daily treatment

As there is no cure for Cystic Fibrosis, we get given numerous amounts of treatments and medications that we have to do everyday and this will last for the rest of our lives. I thought I would share some more information on the certain steps that I have to do daily, now this varies for every person with CF.

Firstly, I thought I would start off with my treatments! I have had several different ways of having physio on my chest while growing up and what I use to have as a child was percussion physiotherapy. My mom use to do this technique on my chest every morning and evening until I was about 9 years old. Since then, whenever I feel like I have mucus (yes not a nice word) on my chest and I’m coughing a lot, I will still have some percussion on my chest as for me this always works in shifting any crap off my chest.

(Hugo likes to sit next to me when I do my treatment)

The machine that’s in this picture is called a Resmed machine (it probably has a proper name for it, but this is just what I call it) what this machine does is basically filters the air and I just breathe it in. This is such a simple machine but it helps open my airways more, I usually only use this machine for about 10-15 minutes a day because I find that I get breathless easy using this. I haven’t had this machine long, only just over a year and to me it’s helped make a huge difference.

My next treatment is something that I have had for a while now and it’s been part of my daily life since I was in year 5 at school. I was given a pep mask to use which is my new form of physiotherapy. Being given this pep mask meant that I started to have some freedom and wasn’t just depending on my mom to do my physio with me. I can also just pop this in my bag and take it with me if I’m ever feeling under the weather at work, I can sit in the office and do an extra round of physio. I usually do 10 sets of 10, however I am not going to lie about this, I always lose count. So I can end up doing more of my physio. What personally helps me, I usually watch a whole episode of Coronation Street and then once that’s finished I know my treatment is completed.

One of my newest treatments is this nebuliser, I have only had this for about 5 years now and I do this every evening. This doesn’t take too long, roughly about 15 minutes. A nebuliser is just a way of breathing in a form of liquid medication, there are different types that people with CF use.

We also have to try and make sure we are always keeping active. Now, this is my biggest downfall when it comes to my health. I struggle so much to do exercise, the thought of going the gym scares me. However, I do loads of walking and try to do on average around 27 thousands steps a day. Obviously this isn’t the case since I’m stuck at home currently, but I have started doing 4 mile walks of an evening to try and clear my lungs. I know this is something I massively need to focus on, but I always come up with an excuse.

I hope this has given you a little insight to some of the treatments I do daily, there are more that I have done throughout my life which haven’t worked for me so I’ve not continued with them. Again, every person living with CF does different treatment to me, but this is just what I do.

My next post will be about my medications.

Girl With The Long hair x

More information can be found on the Cystic Fibrosis trust website which I have left a link below for you.

https://www.cysticfibrosis.org.uk/