What Triggers Coughing Up Blood?

Hi Amy! I have exactly the same chronic diseases that you have along with IBS. For me, coughing up blood is more a symptom of a Bronchiectasis exerbation. I experienced that this past December along with increased chest congestion . A two week course of Amoxicillin Clav 875 antibiotic cleared me right up. My understanding is that you need to treat this because while MAC is a slow growing disease that may not need to be treated if asymptomatic; Bronchiectasis is an incurable condition that can cause further damage to your lungs. Also, you will feel much better!! Hope this helps!
Dee

Thanks Dee!
This is helpful.
Have you found any correlation between activities, specific foods, etc and exerbations?
Stay golden,
Amy

Not Dee, but Sue - I have had (diagnosed) Bronchiectasis for 5 year, probably much longer. My exacerbations do not include blood, but do include increased mucus, cough, often fever and more fatigue. My triggers are catching any respiratory virus, overdoing activities for several days in a row, and slacking on airway clearance. I can also get an exacerbation by ignoring or failing to treat increased allergy or asthma symptoms. As soon as I begin to "feel" one coming, I double my airway clearance (from once to twice a day), add a budosenide neb if my chest is tight, drink lots of extra warm fluids and rest for a day or two. If that is not enough, I have oral prednisone on hand, and start a 2 week course. This is not necessarily common, but my primary, ID doc and pulmonologist have agreed on it because I also have a systemic inflammatory reaction when I get sick, and this calms both lungs and body.

Have you learned yet what triggers your exacerbations?
Sue

I have only briefly coughed up very small amounts of red/pink blood and that was once when I had pseudomonas pneumonia (December) and once from aggravated post nasal drip dry coughing (recent). I have coughed up a lot of brownish mucus which I believe is old blood and my bronchoscopy showed that. Since I started the saline 3% (not quite one month) I haven't seen any brownish or reddish/pinkish mucus so that is a good sign probably. I was also told that the blood (red/pink/brown) was not at all unusual for bronchiectasis if the red/pink was not a lot.

Hey Amy!
I think over doing exercise or even having days packed too full tends to lower my immunity to colds, viruses, etc. It is usually in the winter months when I experience. My symptoms are increased cough, fatigue, chest congestion and this last time coughing up some blood as you described. However, I do not produce sputum…. Only when I am sick or have exerbation. I keep a low grade fever daily from MAC, they think.
Dee

I cough up blood, and clots quite frequently. This has been going on for many years. It use to be infrequent, but the past 3 years has increased greatly. I have MAC and Bronchiectasis. The only thing I noticed is that under stress it happens more often. I don't know if that has anything to do with it. I have never taken the big 3 because of other health issues. I do vest and 7% saline twice a day for 30 minutes.
I would like to hear more about frequency from others. I find it very upsetting. I started making a chart of episodes.
Lorraine

Hi All - I was diagnosed with bronchiectasis about 4 years ago. At that point I had to go to the emergency room because I started coughing up blood (quite scary). They gave me a CT scan and told me I had pneumonia. Sent me home with a Z-pack. About every six months I start coughing up blood again, end up in the hospital. The last time was the first week of January. I spent three days in the hospital on intravenous antibiotics. Had pneumonia again and was sent home with a prescription of Cipro - 2X a day for 10 days. The infection cleared up. Coughing up blood for me is usually a sign of another infection. I try my best to continue living my life as best I can. I do not want to be defined by this illness although at times it is difficult to do.

Hi, I have MAC but no bronchiectasis and I had two episodes of coughing blood, one start immediately after skating in cold weather so I assume alot of exertion in the cold air was the trigger. The other one was when I was doing airway clearance too much in the beginning when I was just learning how. the second episode was minor. The first was more scary. I have been on big 3 for 12 months now and not had any more since starting.
I feel like the cold air and overexertion did it both times. The doc agreed with me.

I have coughed up blood periodically for years. My pulmonologist used to say it’s always a sign of infection. Not anymore. In my case it can be from over exertion or poor air quality, just irritation to the lungs. Reducing my activities for a couple of days has been taking care of it. There’s a good podcast on hemoptysis on Ntm talk with Dr. Swenson. Here’s the link
https://ntmtalk.buzzsprout.com/

My pulmonologist says that the small little strings of blood are usually from irritation in the lungs and the large fresh amounts of blood can be from a large vein irritated or an infection.

That has been my experience. I can’t do 7% anymore because it causes small bleeds from irritation. And the only time I had a terrifying large bleed ended up being a coinfection of staph aureus.