Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or COPD is a gradual loss of your ability to breathe affectively. Normally as you inhale, air moves freely through your trachea or windpipe, then through large tubes called bronchi, smaller tubes called bronchioles, and finally into tiny sacs called alveoli.

Small blood vessels called capillaries surround your alveoli, oxygen from the air you breathe passes into your capillaries, then carbon dioxide from your body passes out your capillaries into your alveoli, so that your lungs can get rid of it when you exhale.

Normally your airways and alveoli are flexible and spraying. When you inhale, each air sac inflates like a small balloon, when you exhale, the sacs deflate. Smoking is leading cause of COPD, however, it may also be caused by long exposure to other lung irritants, such as air pollution, chemical fumes, and dust. If you have COPD,  you have the two main conditions that make up the disease, emphysema and chronic bronchitis.

In emphysema, your airways and air sacs lose their flexibility making it hard for them to expand and contract, emphysema destroys some of your air sac walls, leading to fewer larger sacs that provide less area to absorb oxygen from the air you breathe. The symptoms of emphysema include: wheezing, shortness of breath, and tightness in your chest. With chronic bronchitis, damage inside your airways causes the lining to swell, thicken and make mucus. You develop a persistent cough as your body attempts to get rid of the extra mucus.

The symptoms of chronic bronchitis include an ongoing cough that produces a lot of mucus, shortness of breath and frequent respiratory infections. The damage done to your lungs by COPD can not be reversed, and there is no cure for the disease. However, treatment can slow the progress of the your disease and help you feel better, the common treatments are quitting smoking, use of inhaled medicines to open your airways and reduce swelling, antibiotics for bronchitis caused by bacterial infection, oxygen therapy for those with advanced COPD and severely low level of oxygen in their blood, and surgery such as ablectomy and lung volume reduction surgery to remove non-functioning air sacs.

The best way to prevent yourself from getting COPD is to never smoke. If you are a smoker, quitting smoking reduces the chance you develop COPD, you can also limit your exposure to chemicals, fumes and dusts that may cause COPD.