Illuminating ILD and awareness for wellness

Have you heard of Interstitial Lung Disease (ILD)? Like most people, you may not have – ILDs are, after all, a group of lung disorders that are significantly rare compared to other pulmonary diseases.  
 
But as uncommon as it is, ILDs are usually severely life-threatening. Diagnosis of this group of diseases can take up to months and more, and there is no cure apart from the option of a lung transplant, as ILD treatments can only seek to improve your symptoms.  
 
How do we protect our lungs, and what can we do for our friends and family who may be afflicted with ILDs? 
 
There was a lot we found out during an insightful interview with Dr. Gilly May Santiago-Europa, a pulmonology expert from St. Luke’s Medical Center. We talked to Dr. Gilly for an episode of Okay, Doc that was dedicated to ILDs, just in time for the observance of Rare Disease Month in February. 

According to Dr. Gilly, most ILDs are idiopathic, meaning there is no clear sign of the cause of the disease. “ILDs can come from toxins in your environment, such as from occupational exposure,” she told us. 
 
ILDs are characterized by the scarring or fibrosis it causes on the tissue walls of our lungs’ air sacs, which thickens and stiffens the tissues, causing difficulty in breathing and can lead to other pulmonary complications. 
 
One of the biggest challenges with an ILD is in its diagnosis. Dr. Gilly pointed out that ILDs have a lot of similarities with other lung-related conditions: coughing, shortness of breath, and body pain. “But what eventually sets ILDs apart is that its symptoms persist across weeks and months.”  
 
Unfortunately, there is no diagnostic test specifically designed to diagnose ILD in a patient. Instead, our pulmonologists listen for a crackling type of sound from the lungs and find confirmation through CT scans and pulmonary function tests. 
 
The treatment for this type of disease involves the use of anti-fibrotics to slow down the irreversible scarring effect ILD has on lung tissue. ILD has no cure outside of getting a lung transplant, where according to Dr. Gilly is usually the last recourse opted only when “the lungs are no longer stable, or when the pulmonary system