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Every day I cough up what looks like a scab with ugly mucous and blood
Ear, Nose & Throat (ENT) | Last Active: Jun 7 3:08pm | Replies (413)Comment receiving replies
Hey! Thanks for you detailed posts. Your pictures of the scab are soooo similar to mine. I kept a food diary for a few weeks because LPR is also still on my list of possible causes, but when eating acidic foods/fried foods I don't notice the scab getting worse, sometimes I actually have days with just a tiny scab while I ate crappy foods. So it seems super random and therefore I started to think my scab isn't reflux related. Also after a course of antibiotics because staph a was found during culture, the mucus and crust disappeared but it returned after I finished the meds.
Up untill now I also didn't come across anyone who had the crusts with LPR, only mucus (which I have also). Anyway: one weird thing that happens to me is when I get a cold, it seems to impact my sinuses immediately but in a weird way. The thick mucus stops, the crust isn't there all of a sudden untill the cold is over, but I do dislodge nasty sinus mucus blobs that I have to hack up from somewhere deep and spit out. They're bloody and yellow and super firm. Did you also experience that? My post nasal drip and scabs started after covid infection 2 years ago and I never had mucus or sinus problems before. Up untill now (working with a , 4th ENT), chronic pharyngitis was my nr 1 suspicion because the same type of crusts appear with that disease. But now reflux is back on my suspicion list haha.
Replies to "Hey! Thanks for you detailed posts. Your pictures of the scab are soooo similar to mine...."
May I ask, what is LPR?
I have been dealing with the mucous scab in my throat since shortly after recovering from covid in Nov 2023 or so.... but it is off and on. I did see an NP in April 2024 who gave me antibiotics and a steroid pack. He said if it continued, I should see an ENT. It returned 1 or 2 times after that ...and then again now. With this round it's been about 3 scabs in about 10 days or so. I could feel I was getting a cold about 2-3 weeks ago (body aches and throat soreness and wanted to nip it in the bud quickly because I had to work trip coming up so I gargled with salt water and did the Airborne and the zinc lozenge and all the things. And I basically nipped it in the bud except in the past week or so I've had two or three scab mucus deals coming out of my throat (which doesn't hurt anymore by the way. There is no pain associated with the weird scab issue for me. It is crazy how firmly it seems attached to my throat and how thick and firm they are but also mucousy and mostly darkish brown - and always from the same spot it feels like. I haven't seen an ENT doctor about it yet but I'm about to start looking into it. The the one that came off last night while I was sleeping and woke me up was bigger than the rest I've had so far. Did you get to the bottom of your issue yet? I do not think I have reflux by the way. It generally seems to be something that lingers after a cold for me.
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Just a couple days of avoiding bad foods don’t help. This is something you have to commit several weeks to, to see an improvement. You also need to do this in conjunction with the baking soda and Gaviscon advance or something to neutralize and keep the pepsin from coming up while you are healing. I talked about that in my first two comments. At first if you have this, all foods will irritate you, even safe ones, until you heal. The only fruits you can eat during the healing phase are melons- so it’s a pretty strict diet. It’s only for 30 days though until you can start adding things back in. The thing with LpR is that the pepsin event only needs to happen sporadically to cause damage, unlike GERD. It could stem from vagus nerve damage or a functional issue, not diet, so it seems random but it isn’t- it might not be the food causing it if it’s one of those problems, and it may not happen every time you eat if that’s the case. It’s not just fried foods- some of those would actually be fine- it’s things like onions garlic caffeine- these cause the esophageal sphincter to relax and let the pepsin up. The acidic foods like tomato sauce vinegar citrus are normally healthy but they are irritating tissue that’s already inflamed which is why they are avoided during healing.