My 10-Day Supplement Trial for Mild Bronchiectasis

I wanted to share the results of a small self-experiment I recently did. Obviously, this is just one person’s experience and not medical advice, but perhaps it will be useful or interesting to someone dealing with similar symptoms.

A little background on my journey:
Earlier this year, in February/March, I developed what felt like a fairly typical but persistent bronchitis, with a lot of intense coughing.
Then in April, I developed a new set of symptoms: increased bronchial mucus production, chest rattling/rhonchi when exhaling due to loose mucus, a frequent need to clear my airways, and significant nasal and sinus congestion.

That was followed by several months of medical detective work: steroid inhalers, oral steroids, five courses of antibiotics including levofloxacin, pulmonary function testing, chest and sinus CT scans, extensive blood work, allergy testing, and multiple sputum cultures.

My chest CT showed only:
“Trace right middle lobe peripheral bronchial plugging and airway irregularity.”
In contrast, my sinus CT showed much more extensive disease:
“Pan-sinus mucosal inflammatory disease with opacification of all paranasal sinus outflow tracts, pneumatized/layering secretions as well as high-density secretions.”

Initially, none of the pulmonologists I saw mentioned bronchiectasis. However, my symptoms seemed quite consistent with a bronchiectasis-type mucus-clearance problem, and by July the working interpretation became very mild/borderline bronchiectasis together with significant chronic sinusitis.

My symptoms are objectively fairly mild, but they have still affected my quality of life considerably. I constantly feel some degree of chest congestion, and once you become aware of that sensation, it is difficult not to think about it.

Why I tried supplements
I asked about trying the new DPP1 inhibitor Brinsupri, but my disease was considered far too mild to justify starting a relatively new prescription drug.
That got me interested in whether any nutritional compounds or supplements might partially overlap with some of the inflammatory pathways affected downstream by DPP1 inhibition.

To be clear, I could not find any natural compound that directly reproduces the mechanism of brensocatib or directly inhibits DPP1 in a clinically comparable way.

Brensocatib acts upstream by inhibiting activation of neutrophil serine proteases during neutrophil maturation. Nutritional compounds, by comparison, may influence various downstream inflammatory, oxidative-stress, mucus-production, or neutrophil-signaling pathways — but much less specifically and with substantially weaker evidence.

Still, I found several compounds with at least some mechanistic or preclinical rationale for modulating neutrophilic inflammation and/or mucus production. I combined these with NAC and several traditional herbal/mucus-support products.

The idea of my experiment was deliberately to combine everything at once and maximize the potential effect, fully recognizing that this would make it impossible to know which individual component was responsible and that such a large regimen might not be appropriate or sustainable long term.

The regimen
Everything was readily available on Amazon and cost approximately $200 in total.

Turmeric/Curcumin with BioPerine — Nutricost
2,300 mg/day
• 767 mg morning
• 767 mg noon
• 767 mg evening

Omega-3 EPA/DHA — ZenWise
• 1 softgel morning
• 1 softgel noon
• 1 softgel evening

Ginger Root Extract — Nutricost
4,400 mg/day
• 2,200 mg morning
• 2,200 mg evening

Resveratrol — Nutricost
700 mg/day
• 350 mg morning
• 350 mg evening

Sulforaphane Glucosinolate — Nutricost
100 mg/day
• 50 mg morning
• 50 mg evening

Green Tea Extract — NOW Foods
400 mg/day
• 400 mg morning

Quercetin with Bromelain — Nutricost
880 mg/day
• 440 mg morning
• 440 mg evening

Additional Bromelain — Nutricost
500 mg/day
• 500 mg morning

N-Acetylcysteine (NAC) — Nutricost
600 mg/day
• 600 mg morning

ClearLungs Extra Strength — RidgeCrest Herbals
• 1 morning
• 1 noon
• 1 evening

SinusClear — RidgeCrest Herbals
• 1 morning
• 1 noon
• 1 evening

Mullein Leaf Extract — RespiClear
• 1 mL morning
• 1 mL evening

Mucus-Clear — Native Remedies
• 0.75 mL morning
• 0.75 mL noon
• 0.75 mL evening

What happened?
I followed this regimen consistently for 10 days.
Subjectively, I would estimate that my bronchial mucus production and associated airway-clearing cough decreased by approximately 50%.

Before the experiment, my morning airway-clearance session would typically produce around a tablespoon of white mucus/phlegm. During the trial, the amount became noticeably smaller, and I needed to cough and clear my airways less frequently.

I also tolerated the regimen surprisingly well. I took everything with food and did not notice any side effects during those 10 days.

That said, I definitely would not describe this as a cure. I still have a mild sensation of chest congestion during the day, so whatever underlying process is causing the problem is clearly still present.

And because I started so many things simultaneously, there is absolutely no way to know whether the improvement came from one specific supplement, several of them acting together, normal recovery over time, changes in my sinus disease, or simply day-to-day variation.

The next part of my experiment
I have now stopped everything completely.
I want to see what happens during the post-intervention/washout period. If the mucus and congestion noticeably return, that would at least make the observation more interesting.

If they do return, I may eventually reintroduce selected components individually or in smaller groups to see whether I can identify which ones — if any — are actually contributing.

I’ll report back once I see where things settle after the washout.

Again, this is just my personal self-experiment, not a recommendation that anyone else take this combination, particularly because supplements can have side effects, drug interactions, and effects on the liver, bleeding risk, etc. But I thought the observation was interesting enough to share with the group.