Unbend COPD Fingernails

Unbend COPD Fingernails

1/20/21 ~ What are the chances of unbending COPD fingernails and getting rid of the underlying COPD? That’s what I’m keen to know.

First, a word about COPD, Coronary Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, frequently associated with smoking. Only I don’t smoke, not even weed, and I have COPD.

A typical list of symptoms:

• Shortness of breath during activity
• Wheezing
• Chest tightness
• Chronic cough that may produce mucus, ranging from clear to greenish
• Lack of energy
• Swelling in ankles, feet or legs

The symptom that alerted me, however, was a fingernail that began bending over the tip of my finger.

I’d first heard about bending fingernails two decades earlier when I began my website. At the time there was nothing similar on the internet and I couldn’t imagine people just taking my word for things… I had to have experts!

But all I could find was a one liner from Tessa Jupp, R.N., active in the Post-Polio Network, Dec. 2001, “Good vitamin B12 levels produce white moons at the base of each fingernail.” And, thank heavens, Hippocrates, (400 B.C.E.) father of clinical medicine, who said fingernails reveal health and inner condition. He identified clubbing, where a fingernail bends over, as a sign of lung and heart disease.

That was it, remembering that was what first alerted me to my heart/lung problem.

Two years later the problem was worse. I’d be out of breath after the least activity, my bending fingernails were splitting, and my ankles were swollen.

Clearly, stress was making it worse… a bout with stress, and just walking from my kitchen to my bedroom left me winded. What was scary, though, was that my legs would collapse, totally stop supporting me, and I’d fall onto my walker. (Way better than falling to the floor, of course.)

Then my COPD fingernails began splitting.

Was the splitting from going vegetarian? Up until a year earlier I ate chicken. So, maybe if I wasn’t eating chicken, I should buy gelatin… when I was young it was common to put gelatin in orange juice, or cranberry juice, etc., for thicker, more resilient fingernails.

To see if eating chicken made a difference, I ordered Swanson canned chicken breasts from Amazon On November 18, 2020.

As of today, two months later, the splitting has stopped. So, I’m encouraged.

But, the real impetus to write this page was… You Can Call me Al. I love that the video clip starts where Paul Simon has his flute up in the attitude of a heralding angel. It’s like, YES, you can unbend fingernails!!!

Basically, the clip shows the “dance” steps I use while watching the video. When I started using the video to exercise it was hard to do a full minute. At that time my ankles were quite swollen, and most nights pain in my legs kept me awake.

Adding a few seconds every few days, and saying to myself, “I’m growing stronger,” has helped me reach almost 3 minutes of exercise… once a day, in the morning while I’m waiting from my coffee to perk.

My understanding is that exercise in the morning sets the metabolism for the day. And, speaking of metabolism, I’ve begun having a handful of Spirulina tablets, high in iodine, with my first swallows of coffee. Our thyroid gland needs iodine to work at optimal levels.

Results: no more swollen ankles, no more leg pain keeping me awake at night, and possibly a greater capacity for breath… making it easier to be active.

Here’s the full Paul Simon, Chevy Chase, video of You Can Call Me Al:

And, if you ever want to ad text to a video for about $3, try Pixiko.com