7% is best but some of us can't handle it so we use 3%. .9% is normal body saline and will not help you cough up gunk. I don't think it comes in other %. You need a prescription for 3 or 7%. Ntm's don't like salt so it is a really great airway clearance tool.

Hey rits, clue-in this newbie; Ntm?

Wonder why my pulmo would Rx .09 if is useless as you suggest?

Nontubercular mycobacteria.

You don't need a prescription for .9. It's sometimes mixed with nebulized bronchodilators (meds that open the airways) so it's prescribed along with the other med. It's what's in the iv when patients are hospitalized and are given saline because it's the same amount of saline as our normal body fluids. I don't know why your pulmo thought you would benefit from nebbing it. Let me know if you find out. I have a lot of trouble with any saline so something lower than 3% that does some good would be great for me.

Actually saline comes at least as high as 10%. My pulmo nurse used it to force me to cough up sputum when I had a dry cough. The downside was I felt "a-salted" for at least a day. We tried 3% but it wasn't enough to make my cough productive. But I do ok with 7% and it brings up lots of gunk some days.

@thumperguy Are you asking about the % or the amount mL? If it’s the mL, I think it depends on your nebulizer, the maximum mL that they hold. I think, Using 5 mL will take about twice as long to nebulize.
GinaK

@thumperguy Here is a good read on “gooder” percentages of saline solution. Haha. Check out chart number two. 7 percent seems like the magic number. Kate
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4850692/

@thumperguy, The study that I read (which was shared here on this forum a long time ago) showed that at 7% was when MAC pulled back. It hung around up until the 7% solution was introduced. I've been using 7% for probably two years and have been testing negative for MAC. And my little neb is 3ml. Nan

Oops. You were asking how much .9% and I read it as .9% or 3%. Did your doctor prescribe .9% along with another drug for nebulizer? If so, I would assume the prescription would say what size the vials are. The .9 dilutes the med and more of it would make it take much longer to neb. My 3% and 7% vials are 4 ml.

rits, you said "7% is best but some of us can't handle it so we use 3%." What does not being able to handle it involve.?

Rits, the only time another drug is Rx'd. is during "flare-ups" which I've always characterized as febrile acute bronchitis episodes. I've used this language with the doc and he's never offered any alternative way to talk about it. My first pulmo left his practice. Neither he nor the current doc has ever had anything to say about the concentration or the 3 mL volume of the Rx. I've only recently, through the good offices of you and other contributors on this discussion forum, begun to learn and perhaps to be a bit more proactive in what's being done when I see the pulmo. For example it never occurred to me to me that there might be other concentrations than 0.9 or other volumes than 3 mL.

Thanks Nan. Time for me to talk to the Pulmo about the 7% solution. Humm, sounds like the title to a mystery novel.

Coughing with the first inhale and terrible shortness of breath making it impossible to do the treatment. I have similar problems with 3% and Arikayce but not as intense. While many patients have no problem, my decrepit lungs do not like having this stuff in them!

@thumperguy 7% saline kills avium bacterium. I will look for the saline chart located in the 'DiscussionBoard' list.