Newly diagnosed after years of chronic coughing. I ended up in the hos

Have you been tested for MAC?

I’m so sorry you’re having a tough time of it. I just have a couple minutes now and I know others will respond with great advice, but I’ll give you a couple things you can start reading/thinking about.

Sputum. Monitoring the volume and color is important in bronchiectasis. You want to keep your lungs as clear as possible. Are you producing any? Has it been cultured? It’s the culture results that guide antibiotic therapy.

Airway clearance. Do you do this? It is a key in bronchiectasis management. Many of us use a nebulizer with a bronchodilator or saline, followed by a flutter device then huff coughing to get the sputum out. If you’re able to get it out, it helps with the random coughing. There is a ton of information on this site to search on airway clearance, including a lecture by Dr McSwain that is in recent daily threads.

@rlynnh
I am not familiaer with Bronshietasis. I do thave chronic coughing caused by drainage down my throat from sinuses. I have a tremendous amount of mucus coming down as I had 3 sinus surgeries to open sinus drainage up.

I really never stop coughing but better than getting sinus infections. Have you talked to your pulmonologist about your mental anquish? Have you sought a second opinion. From your post it seems a second opinion on diagnosis and treatmetns would surely help you.

Thank you for your reply. I have a dry cough. Gag until I sweat and am exhausted. Would a nebulizer help? It is awful and I cannot go anywhere because of severe coughing.

It is so important to find a pulmonologist who is familiar with Bronchiectasis. From what you wrote it sounds like yours may not have much experience with Bronchiectasis. Can you find someone who specializes in your area?

Unfortunately cough and fatigue are symptoms of bronchietasis. Antibiotics are given for infections, pneumonia etc. confirmed by sputum culture and xray. Have you had a MAC culture done???

Trying!!!

@rlynnh please don’t cry - although if you want to go ahead. You might feel more tired but at least you will let go of some frustration. So first of all because you have bronchiectasis you are prone to getting every bug that’s floating around. Was your sputum checked? Did you have a bronch? A rule of thumb for most people with bronchiectasis is a MWF dose of azithromycin to ward off frequent infections. My husband has sarcoid and is on that cocktail. I get every bacteria out there and am on levoquin instead. Plus I’ve had MAC and aspergillosis and RSV and pseudomonas- so see it is a good idea to be on something ! We are at risk because we have bronchiectasis! That’s why nebulizing is important as well - to get the junk out of there. Good luck. Feel better please. So sorry. Irene5

I can’t say for sure if a nebulizer would help you individually, but it is very common for them to be prescribed. Often, albuterol is used which makes the airways dilate so that clearing them is easier. Some use saline also.
Have you had a pulmonary function test? Mine showed asthma and once infections were ruled out ( a long process with bronchoscopy and a variety of cultures that take 6 weeks for results), I was started on Advair. That took care of the little nagging cough I’d had forever. I have little cough now, but my bronchiectasis is mild. Note-my horrid cough had improved after aggressive treatment for sinuses and post nasal drip.

Btw, I’m not on antibiotics and I believe many others are not. It seems to me that most are treated when their sputum is positive, . However people have very different severity and history of infections and treatment varies.
Keep asking questions. It’s a helpful and reasonable
group.

Where are you located? Someone in group might have recommendations.