COPD is the acronym for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. COPD and heart failure (HF) are different conditions, but both can make you short of breath when you do something physical like climbing stairs, exercise, or walking for a long distance. With these conditions, breathing problems happen for different reasons. It’s hard to exhale all of the air in your lungs with COPD because of lung damage, often from years of smoking. You most likely breathe comfortably when you’re at rest with COPD. But with activity your breath starts coming in before air from your last exhale goes out, which causes shortness of breath. Your ticker doesn’t pump blood efficiently if you have heart failure (HF), and you can probably breathe easily when at rest as with COPD. Blood flow must increase with activity, and your ticker must pump harder and faster. Blood “backs up” into your lungs if your ticker can’t keep up, and shortness of breath occurs because of this fluid congestion. Link Betw...