You’re in good hands with all these relayed experiences, @A MyCOPDTeam Member. In my humble opinion, having dealt with this for years, when you get sick, you get very sick (very chesty / congested) quickly, and stay that way longer.

The goal is to never catch a cold if you can avoid it (as mine always turns into pneumonia). Get on antibiotics as quickly as possible if you have any bright yellow / bright green mucus, as that’s always a sign of infection.

Keep exercising, as it helps to clear your lungs, and stay hydrated as hydration helps to thin the secretions for you to cough it up and cough it out.

Buy stock in a kleenex tissue company, as kleenex are going to be an ongoing thing you’re going to rely upon.

If in company, always head to the bathroom to cough it up and out, and check the color of your phlegm so that you learn what’s “normal” for your mucus as well as what’s signaling potential trouble.

Ideally, your phlegm should be clear to cloudy / grey or white. It may have specks of brown or red in it (blood, old or new), and if you’re sick, there will be more red specks (active fighting of an infection) vs brown (old stress signs that have oxidated to turn brown). As you get an infection, you may see it get very opague and cloudy, edging toward bright yellow or green. As you get better, you’ll see the green get more cloudy grey green and evolve back through the color spectrum to grey white and then to clear.

You need to figure out what’s normal for you vs abnormal, as everyone’s stages follow this spectrum, but each of us spends different lengths of time at our color stages.

If you can’t tolerate a lot of water, plain, remember that you can push up your hydration intake via juices and teas and soups, but you need to push as much hydration as you can tolerate. Ideally 80+ ounces a day.

If you’re really having trouble pushing the congestion out of your lungs each day, start every day with a warm beverage such as soup broth, hot cocoa or tea to help break up any congestion pockets in the back of your throat.

Don’t forget to learn the “huff” cough to get the mucus out, too. Felix Unger really did need to “huff” cough / honk to get relief when congested, LOL. You’ll be fine. It’s just another label which is meant to help you feel your best.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=33PwVLxOiww

Monday, 08-APR-24

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A MyCOPDT...

Hi @A MyCOPDTeam Member, i was diagnosed with bronchiectasis around 1990. I was coughing blood so the Lung consultant put a scope into lungs and then said i had bronchiectasis. Simply this means that the linning of my little airways are not smooth. So anythig that gets into my airways (bacteria / microbes) stay there for ages. So when normal people catches a cough & cold, they will recover in 10 days. But i will take 30 days to recover, unless i take strong antibiotics. I lived with this for years and go for months without a flare up. But my Chest Xrays show i inflamation in my lungs almost all the time. Since 2020 my bronchiectasis has gone chronic and i have a wet cough all the time. So i have had to use inhalers and mucosolvents to manage the cough and phlegm.
My constant coughs have damaged more air sacs in my lungs and i was diagnosed with COPD in 2022.

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A MyCOPDT...

Bronchiectasis is a condition which causes a lot of mucus and involves a lot of techniques to get rid of it. Go to www.copdfoundation and search Bronchiectasis. There's a lot of good information there and also at www.intminfo.org

Mary, I got Bronchiectasis about 3 years ago and my doctor prescribed a combination of Azithromycin (Z-Pack) plus Prednisone for a 5 day treatment, but I had to do that 3 times before my phlegm finally went to clear or white and I felt a whole lot better. ds

JoanneC thank you. Plain and understandable. I actually started this a little over a year ago. But they just found it. Yes I, have coughed blood up off and on for that period .
But it's good info