@A MyCOPDTeam Member Your doctor can prescribe mucus thinning medicine, usually Mucinex .
There are devices called flutter pipes that create a low frequency back pressure that brings up mucus from the deeper smaller airways, to where it can be more easily coughed up. So long as you have no right sided heart problems or TB they are safe, and inexpensive.
Many people find after stopping smoking, they make a lot of mucus for a while, as the lungs begin to clean.
I find it builds up overnight from shallow breathing, so early morning exercises and deep breathing helps to push it up, making it easier the rest of the day.

Some benefit from cutting out or reducing starchy foods like potatoes.

As for panic, caused by fear creating adrenaline, speeding the heart and creating more demand for oxygen, a vicious cycle, I find It helps to completely empty the lungs of used air a few times, breathing in through the nose between long slow out breaths, it tricks the brain to break the cycle.
Hope some of this helps..
😊🍀

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A MyCOPDT...

What Philpot is describing is called pursed lip breathing, and it is a good way to reduce the severity of any coughing spell and help you recover. If you google "pursed lip breathing" you'll find many descriptions and videos of how to do it. Practice it until it's second nature and you actually breathe that way most of the time. Focusing on your breathing as Phil describes helps a lot and the breathing technique will help you recover.

I just ordered an acapella flutter valve and will share my experience with it when it arrives in a couple of weeks. I also asked my niece, who is a respiratory therapist, if she knows of a flutter valve device that would attached directly to my albuterol nebulizer. I am looking forward to being able to choke up mucus like a professional, as only a copd participant could (lol)

Keep water handy and sip throughout the day. There is always a bottle of water on my bedside table and the end table where I sit to watch tv and a couple in the car. If I go to the doctor I carry a bottle with me....or anywhere I go. Some foods create more mucus and some thin it. You need to pay attention to what you are eating and drinking and see what affects you. For a long time I drank pineapple juice and maybe at a few pineapple chunks before bedtime. Pineapple juice seems to help me. Dairy is not good for me near bedtime.

For coughing and panic attacks, keep water handy and sip some, and do your pursed lip breathing. It may also help to try to sleep on a slightly raised incline for your upper body to help with drainage. I also will drink some hot tea to help thin out the mucus. I have used musinex when really bad, but avoid it if I can because I just don't like it.

I also keep a bag of medicated cough drops for when my throat is irritated and some cough medicine left over from my last virus and if needed I will use it.

Try to manage it and it will get better.

Thanks Jean, I have used the pursed lip technique and will probably get better at it with more practice.