Airway clearance and how I feel throughout the day

Hi Sue,
Many thanks for your input as always. Greatly appreciated!
I remember that you mentioned that your husband has a mild bronchiectasis. I am curious about his daily maintenance. What does he do to keep his bronchiectasis stable? Does he use Albuterol, saline, steroid inhaler? How does he keep inflammation down in his airway?  I try to get as much info as I can so that I can be on the right path in this life-long journey. 
Thanks again and take care!
Ling

It might prove useful @wangling to have an immune workup through simple blood test, which tests how well your body builds antibodies. There are many causes of bronchiectasis, one is immunodeficiency. Most pulmonologists look at this possibility during the first few meetings. Often no cause is found and then it's considered idiopathic bronchiectasis (cause unknown). From what I've read, that's around 50% of cases.

Many thanks, scoop.
That is good to know. I think I am one of those unknowns.
That is what my pulmonologist said.

Ling

Hi Ling,
I have had Bronchiectasis for 3 years. I have never taken any antibiotics. What I have been doing to nebulizing with 7% saline and .5 budesonide two times a day, mid morning and evening before sleep. I have had up and down days but so far have managed. What my routine is to walk for an hr in the morning and alternate and row on a rowing machine and some weights for strength. Then I do yoga for an hr and the inversions help to get the mucus out of me. that is the thicker greenish yellow stuff out. then I nebulize that takes me an hour and a half and that sort of keeps me clear for the day until evening. In the evening I just nebulize and that allows me to sleep without coughing.So far its worked and my ID doc and my pulmonologist say to keep doing this method. Wishing all of us good healthy breathing. Hal

Many thanks Hal for the detailed explanation of your daily routine practice. I am very impressed with what you are doing. How dedicated. Sounds like you do everything right to keep infections at bay. 3 years without infection is really great and hard to achieve. Do you use Aerobika to flutter?  Do you think your condition stays stable? I also have a mild case, I was diagnosed last Nov. To keep the condition stable is my goal. But I am not sure I can achieve it. I already feel my symptoms are a little  different from 3 months ago. I have a little more mucus than before. I even don't know what caused the change.  Thank you again for being so generous to share your practice with me. It is a great help. I will ask my pulmonologist again to see if I should use saline. Keep up the good work and stay healthy and strong.
Ling

I do the vest with albuterol nebulizer, and follow it with aerobika with saline 3b%nebulizer. I find that when I get to the saline and aerobika , I bring up tremendous amounts of mucus.
In addition to that, I wake up with at 1/4 least half a cup of mucus in my throat, most mornings
I still have mucus even after doing about seven rounds of the aerobic 10 times each. It does get less, but is it OK to leave some?
For now, I’m just doing this once a day
my Pulmo switched me back to once from twice a day because I was getting very exhausted

Does everybody do this twice a day and how do you have any energy left to exercise. The aerobic art particularly takes an enormous amount out of me.
PS I have BE 3 lobes
If I’m clearing out my mucus, why do I get so much more when I wake up in the morning. It’s always a different color. It’s always yellow whereas the mucus I’ve bring up with the aerobic, etc., is mostly green. Thank you Jill.

PS I wasn’t diagnosed with BE until almost 2 years of continuous pneumonia and a lot of antibiotics to no avail

I don't know all your background so these comments may not apply to you but here are a couple of things to think about.
Our lungs are always producing a certain amount of mucous as their own natural lubricant. When we are lying down at night we are by default doing some postural drainage just by lying there and turning from side to side.
My guess is the yellow color is more of what you would get with having bronchiectasis anyway and the green is the "deeper" stuff you are bring up with the airway clearance.
Have you had a sputum sample sent for testing? Green (and sometimes yellow, depending) usually indicates infection of some sort.

Thank you for your reply. That makes sense. I really appreciate it.
Can you tell me what your airway clearance routine is?
Since I have it in three loaves, it is very concerning to me. It progressed from one to three in less than a year.
Does anyone in this forum know anyone who has actually died from this?
Of course we all hope this will never happen, but I’m wondering about the natural progression of the disease treated or untreated. Thank you so much for your replies Jill.

My experience is that I was working too hard with the inhaling, exhaling, and huff coughing and felt exhausted also.
I was not relaxing and doing it correctly. It is hard to teach in words, however, be gentle with the inhaling, exhaling and huff coughing.
I bring up mucus all day long it is so time consuming, if nothing else, and there is plenty of nothing else for us with BE.
Are you sleeping on a wedge at night? Hope so, that is very important.
I wake up at night to walk down the hall to release my bladder and then have to clear mucus before trying to go back to sleep.
Mornings we do have much mucus having built up in the lungs at night.
I am doing my best to nebulize twice a day and many times I will do three times a day with the nebulizing of saline. The third helps with clearing just before bed.
I take it you are sending mucus, mucus plugs, specimens into the lab for testing for the infection and the degree of the infection, type of infection and the number of colonies. Some labs are limited in their ability to do get all that information.
We will probably not be able to clear fully, each time, all the mucus build up. That is my belief and understanding.......and if I am wrong I hope someone will respond to this belief and what they understand.
Barbara