Phlegm in my throat and post nasal drip after Covid

I have clear mucous after I had covid in March 2023. Had cough first then cough went away and I have clear mucous especially first thing in morning. My ears felt stuffy after I flew home from Aspen in March and discovered I had covid. It went away pretty quickly but the mucous has stayed. I am having an MRI of brain for stuffy ears. My docs wants test with gadiolium dye I have found this dye stays in your system for years. I have told my doc I do not want it and she said she can see more detail with it. I am not ok with the dye so have not had brain scan yet. I noticed RA symptoms after I had dye a few years ago. I had a Racey AFib heart and altitude in plane made left ear drum red. Had to have it lanced in 2019 when I first had covid. My immune system has never been the same. My fighter t cells keep fighting. I am low in blood work. My hands are swelling and hurting so doc wants to do carpal tunnel surgery. I wear braces and the pain and swelling subsides. My blood work neg for RA and ANA neg. My doc says 25% of people do not show RA in blood. This mucous just keeps coming. I rinse my nose with salt saline and it helps temporarily but the mucous and stuffy sinuses still there in morning.

God Bless You! Covid can be brutal whether you have a mild or severe case. I had Covid last August. My inflammation from previous autoimmune diseases ramped up as well as my arthritis. I have had the sticky stringy salvia every since. I choke on it at night. I have tried everything. 5 doctors later and they are all baffled. I say Covid attacked my mucosa & salivary glands. I finally found someone that would listen and are referring me to a long Covid clinic. Do you have one in your area? I am hopeful they can help. Also, I am recently being treated for Lupus. My ana, dsana, sed rate & c-reactive protein are elevated. Never had this until Covid. I have a deep faith in the Lord and I have wonderful family support. That and a good sense of humor is what keeps me going. I am praying for you right now and I am so sorry you are going through this. Blessings & Hugs....

Hi everyone. I'm so glad to have stumbled across you guys. I've been struggling with what you're all describing for over 3 years. Here's my own experience with this mysterious and persistent post nasal drip:

Mine started in March 2020 after a sinus infection lasting 2 months (UK doctors are stingy with antibiotics.) While it's possible I had covid, I showed no typical symptoms (cough, fever.) I hadn't even considered it could be covid-related before I found this discussion.

Now, over 3 years on, the drip has continued and has been chornic. Thick, sticky mucus in my throat all day, every day. I can either spit it out, swallow it or scoop it out with my tongue and remove it from my tongue with a tissue. The consistency of it is thick, gloopy and sticky. Even once I've cleared the mucus I'm able to get rid of, I can still feel it sitting in my throat - too far down for me to get to. This causes a clogged feeling. I'm quite certain it comes from behind my nose as I can feel it initially building up there. Like some of you, it gets worse after eating. It also can occur when I'm doing nothing at all, having not eaten anything. I've attempted many times to establish a pattern but at this point have to acknowledge that there isn't one.

I have been to many different ENTs. I have tried an array of different nasal sprays, saline rinses (with and without biofilm busters mixed in), an upper endoscopy to check for LPR (turns out I don't have it) and the Clarifix procedure. None of this has helped at all. Quite disheartening isn't it! However, I'm not giving up hope - I won't accept that this is going to be for life. There surely must be something that will remedy it. Who knows, maybe an obscure problem requires an obscure remedy.

I'm going to try everything that has been suggested throughout this thread. Should I be fortunate enough to stumble across the thing that cures it, I will report back and let you all know. Thanks!

timbuck2, I am so sorry you have this. Sounds like you could have had Covid. I had a terrible sinus infection with Covid that lasted a while. I have battled this sticky saliva since last year. Never had anything like this until Covid. I have tried everything, been to 5 doctors including (infectious disease), Dermatologist cultured my mouth and it showed nothing but normal mouth bacteria and I did not have thrush. In my heart I think Covid attacked my salivary glands and mucosa. Salty foods & Dairy tend to make it worse so I try to steer clear from those. I use Peroxyl by Colgate in the a.m. and it makes it foam up and I scrape it off, then brush. Salt water rinses, a water pik, and I chew sugar free gum and drinking more water. The Dermatologist told me to use Listerine to keep bacteria down. Mine is worse in the morning and I get choked on this stuff at night sometimes. I spit all day long some days. Anything that you take to dry out your mouth prescription wise, dries my eyes out terribly. I have been told that i have long covid and have been referred to along Covid clinic. It will take a while to get in. If you find out anything that works for you, please let me know and I will do the same. Bless you....

Hello from across the pond!
Since you’re new to this board, I can tell you what worked for my phlegm and consequent cough that continued for months before I went to an ENT. He prescribed Amitriptyline which was developed as an antidepressant, but patients reported that it also had beneficial side effects for chronic Covid coughs. I used it for 2 months and my cough disappeared. The last 2 weeks I’ve tapered completely off. No cough. Slight drainage like I had before Covid. I am grateful to be rid of persistent cough!

Thanks for the kind words. That really makes me think I did have covid then. Although I don't think it makes much difference how we each developed it - seems we're suffering from the same aliment regardless. Of all the different boards I've come across online, this is the first time in 3 years I feel sure that someone is suffering from the same thing as me!

Hi everyone, if you haven't done it yet please request your mucus being tested for bacteries. I just did and they discovered Staphylococcus A. So I'm on a 10 day course of antibiotics now. Together with that, my ENT advised me to do nasal rinse with xylitol/bicarbonate soda/salt mixture for a month. I'm on day 4 of the rinse now and two huge thick nasty mucus globs were dislodged from deep down my nose/sinuses. It feels like such a relieve and now I'm convinced that there's more crap up there that needs to get out. Hopefully this will resolve my post nasal drip that started 15 months ago after my (very mild) covid infection. I guess covid messed up something there and hopefully it's all being reversed now by rinsing and antibiotics.

Thank you. I truly don't know who to go to again to request this. Dermatologist did not want to swab my mouth again after me not having thrush and my mouth bacteria was normal. Is this a nasal swab or throat saw you are talking about? Thank you and encouraging you onward. Hugs...

I actually did a swab of the nasal mucus that dripped in my throat/was stuck in my nasopharynx. So I guess you could still call it a nasal swab, but only the nasal mucus was collected in my throat. I did it via my ENT. She actually gave me a test kit to take home so I could do it myself when the mucus was real bad so I had enough to collect (it varies from time to time). The next day I delivered the collected mucus inside the container at the hospital lab. I hope you can get a swab also!

Thank you very much. I hope you get better. Blessings....