Exclusive: Ty Pennington raises awareness about bronchiectasis after his mother’s diagnosis

For nearly 30 years, millions have watched Ty Pennington better people’s lives.

Whether he was constructing furniture for room redesigns on Trading Spaces or completely rebuilding the abodes of everyday folks who faced severe hardship on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, his craft bought joy and fresh starts to countless individuals.

But behind the scenes, Pennington’s carpentry skills couldn’t aid the person he wanted to help the most—his mom, Yvonne.

Throughout his adolescence and as he became a household name, Pennington witnessed Yvonne suffer constant bouts of coughing, leaving her gasping for air. It was heartbreaking. Though his mom was the funniest person he knew, laughter had to be kept at a minimum out of fear she’d experience a flare-up. And while she once enjoyed ballet, tap and baton twirling, a quick walk to the mailbox eventually felt like an impossible feat.

Decades passed with the family believing Yvonne had asthma or COPD. It wasn’t until around 2006 that a pulmonologist dug deeper with a CT scan, finally giving her a long-awaited official diagnosis—bronchiectasis, a chronic lung disease where the airways become permanently widened, thickened and scarred.

Now, Pennington is working to spread awareness around this condition, which is estimated to impact 350,000 to 500,000 adults in the United States and over 1 million people globally, according to the American Lung Association. By sharing his mom’s story, Pennington’s hope is that more people dig deeper for an accurate diagnosis rather than spend years wondering what’s wrong.

“I’m known for building houses and making things so much better in people’s lives who are fighting different illnesses. People didn’t know that my own mom has had this condition forever,” Pennington tells Trinity Health Mid-Atlantic in an exclusive interview. “It’s tough. Bronchiectasis literally takes the wind out of life.”

The ins and outs of bronchiectasis

In bronchiectasis patients, cilia—the tiny hair-like structures that normally sweep dust and bacteria out of the airways—stop working properly. Because damaged airways can’t clear mucus effectively, the trapped phlegm becomes a breeding ground for bacteria, resulting in constant infection and inflammation.

“It’s this vicious cycle that keeps occurring,” says Zeeshan Khan, DO, pulmonary medicine provider at Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine Associates.

Dr. Khan explains that bronchiectasis is often triggered by genetic conditions or autoimmune disorders that impact the airways in the lungs. These may include:

• Cystic fibrosis
• Inflammatory bowel diseases like Crohn’s
• COPD
• Chronic asthma
• Chronic infections, either viral or bacterial 

As for bronchiectasis symptoms, the most common are typically shared with other conditions, which is why Yvonne and many others go undiagnosed or misdiagnosed for so long:

• Persistent cough
• Excessive phlegm production
• Shortness of breath
• Loss of appetite
• Weight Loss
• Fever
• Chills
• Night sweats 

“Unfortunately, a lot of people think they just have a chronic cough, whether it’s from allergies or even asthma or COPD,” says Dr. Khan. “Talk to your primary care doctor if symptoms are persistent and don’t get better after several months. If they still go unresolved, see a lung specialist.”

Digging deeper

Yvonne’s appointment with a pulmonologist is what granted her long-awaited answers. After years of constant infections, shying away from exercise and avoiding settings like restaurant buffets, where some may take offense to her coughing, she was finally aware of the culprit.

“For my mom, finding out that there was something more going on than what she’d been told for many, many years helped with her mind. She now had answers as to what was going on and why it kept coming back,” says Pennington. “It changed the way she felt about herself and her condition. Not knowing is the scary part. But once she got the bronchiectasis diagnosis, she knew what she was dealing with.”

Improving daily life

While bronchiectasis cannot be cured, there are ways to minimize symptoms, reduce flare-ups and further damage to the lungs, and give patients better quality of life. Options may include:

• Bronchodilators, which are medications to help open the airways, reduce phlegm production and make breathing easier, often administered through a nebulizer
• Medications to break up phlegm and keep the airways hydrated, also given in a nebulized form
• Chronic antibiotics to suppress infection and inflammation
• Surgical intervention in severe cases, when an area of the lung has been destroyed

In addition to medications, patients can perform airway clearance techniques, including chest percussions and breathing exercises, to help the phlegm move along easier. Dr. Khan also recommends avoiding smoke, dust and other irritants, which can make lung issues worse, and staying up to date on vaccinations for increased disease and infection prevention.

Embracing life’s soundtrack

Currently, Pennington is the sole caregiver of his mom, with the two residing in a Florida home that he built especially for this purpose. Life with a chronic condition is far from easy, but they’re navigating it together with love and their signature Pennington sense of humor.

“The sound of mucus is real. Who knows? Maybe my mom and I will come out with a CD called The Sound of Mucus where I record all her different coughs and we put some type of rhythm to it,” he says with a laugh. “My mom is a lot of fun. And she’s also the kind of person where, if her story can help spark somebody else to get a deeper look and change their life, she’s all for it. Lungs are a big deal. A lot of people just think of them as things that get damaged when you smoke cigarettes, but there’s more going on than people realize.”

Pennington equates this idea—that health concerns aren’t always obvious from the surface—to home renovations. In fact, he finds many similarities between the way you look at a house and the lungs.

“You’re not going to just look at drywall and be like, ‘Oh, I don’t know where that stain’s coming from. Let’s just patch it and move on.’ You’re going to want to open it up, find out what’s really going on behind the walls and take a deeper look. That’s the same with lung health,” says Pennington. “You can’t fix a lung problem with a Band-Aid and cough suppressant. It’s so important to take that deeper look through a CT scan and find out what you’ve got. Life is meant to be breathed in.”

More information on Pennington’s Suspect Bronchiectasis campaign with Insmed can be found at suspectbe.com. 

If you have questions or concerns about your lung health, visit Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine Associates to make an appointment with one of our providers.