AIBU to keep telling DH not to hack up phlegm?

[MRex]

We've all been ill, mucous throughout the house, it's vile all round. DH has been doing his usual of hacking up his nose and throat mucous with the most awful grating sounds to spit it out. He's doing it so harshly he's made his throat bleed, it sounds awful and worse it reminds me of my dad doing the same thing (who DM has forever been telling not to do this). It can't possibly be good for him, it makes his throat bleed! Plus the toilets each have blobs of bloody mucous floating every time I go in, bleurgh! I've only coped before because his colds have been short; he's been doing this for days and is driving me crazy. What if the baby learns to do this hacking up too? He should be like me, just clear the tickle lightly then sip hot drinks, have a regular small sip of cough medicine - no? Anyway he says he's drunk all the cough medicines apart from the linctus that I got because it's suitable for breastfeeding (he says it's no good, but is now drinking it anyway).

He thinks I'm being unreasonable to say he's flat-out banned from the hawking up of gunk, am I? Does anyone have evidence in a science paper that what he's doing is awful, so I could send him a link?

You could send him to the Drs,OP.
And buy him a box of man sized tissues to gob into meanwhile.

Honestly, I don't think you have a clue

Well, its better out than in but if he spits it into the toilet he should at least flush it.

Phlegm makes you cough, only way to get rid of it is to spit it out as cough medicine does nothing. The only thing he's doing wrong is leaving it in the toilet. YABU

And stop being so controlling. You can't ban him from doing anything!

Sounds ridiculous, you are supposed to cough it up by drinking tons of water. But it shouldn’t sound so loud or cause a sore throat. I can cough it up and flush it away, no one would ever know ! He sounds disgusting

Surely he can't help it?
Tell him to flush but yabu.

Of course everyone will cough out some gunk, the issue is that he's overdoing it, which is why it's made his throat bleed. I just want him to cough more gently, drink more and let it come when it's ready instead of hawking it out with the noises.

What's a doctor going to do about a cold? Unless it's been 3 weeks so it's clearly bacterial not viral they'll just make nice noises and wish he hadn't wasted their time.

I've just got over pneumonia and was told by many doctors to hack up as much of the phlegm as I could and spit it out. Steam and a hot shower helped loosen it.

By all means tell him to flush the toilet but you can't ban him from hacking up phlegm and to even contemplate that seems bizarrely controlling.

YABU to ask him not to do it.
YANBU to ask him not to do it in your company or to warn you (I can't deal with even my own mucus, so if my DH has a cough or cold -like we both do now- he will give me a heads up that be is going to make that noise so I can cover my ears). You also ANBU for asking him to flush it away.

But if he wants to make his throat bleed, that's on him.

I was more concerned about the bleeding throat than the vile noise, but that didn't seem to come across. I'm sure when doctors say to spit out phlegm they really don't mean what he's doing, just the bits that come up naturally. The toilet thing is a very minor irritation so it's very much last on my list of complaints. He's agreed to get more cough medicine and is hacking up a little bit more gently. Surprise surprise, the bleeding has accordingly stopped (and he's being less annoying).

He is overdoing it, when I had the same à month ago I didn't want a shredded throat and forcing it up causes me chest pains and vom. I bought covonia and lempsips for at night all in one and combined with all in one tablets to have in the day., as well as soother type sweets for in-between, They worked well together and made bringing up plehgm comfortable but only when it absolutely needed to come up.

Seeing phlegm would make me vom so he is unreasonable to leave it floating.

at not flushing the loo. Your DH is rank

The forced-sounding cough may be what he needs to do to clear the phlegm. He's not creating the phlegm, he's trying of clear it.

You see the bleeding as him doing something wrong rather than and indication of the severity of his condition.

Yes, he should clear it up after himself, but otherwise you're BU

Haven't heard of covonia, is that a cough medicine particularly worth trying then?

LTB

MRex do you really have a regular small sip of cough medicine?
That’s not how you should do it at all. Take the stated dose at the appropriate intervals.

I haven't had any since 2pm because I've been constantly doing things with the baby (e.g. having a shower because he vomited on my face). I've got a horrendous tickle so I'll have some when I go down. Before the 2pm dose I had some at 5am. But the bottle adults can have 5ml/10ml every 4 hours, so DH can have it really quite often.

@mRex yes it's a cough medicine pretty good stuff imo soothes the throat and loosens the phlegm,ick. I used fishermen's cough sweets too for sucking on between doses.

We'll give it a try tomorrow, thanks!

He needs to go to the doctors ASAP tomorrow at the latest - the blood may not be from his throat and he may need a chest x ray & or antibiotics. This happened to my dh only this week - he was doing the same as your dh and Gap sent him for an x ray that showed infection. Phelgm is better out of the body - seconding the above pp that when you have pneumonia you’re told to cough deeply (I had physio’s show me how) so you get as much out as possible.

*Gap = GP

At least he’s not hacking it up and spitting it into CUPS like someone I know! Right in front of people too, and his poor wife will go to take cups out to the kitchen and there’s one full of his chest/nose gunk. Now- THAT’S unspeakably vile.

My FIL’s morning routine involves going to the bathroom to hack up phlegm in the noisiest, most offensive, most disgusting way possible. It’s a wonder I ended up marrying his son, such was my shock when I first stayed over and woke up to the noise.

OP, I don’t know why you’re getting a hard time. If he’s making such a show of things, hacking so forcefully he’s making his throat bleed, then he’s being a dick. Is this the phlegm equivalent of man flu? We all know what it’s like to have phlegm caught in the throat and having to cough it up, but no one needs to put that much EFFORT into it.

As for leaving his sputum behind for you to find - LTB.

@Lumpy76 - it's stopped bleeding now I've got him to stop forcing it so much. It wasn't deep coughing, if you could hear what he was doing you might think differently.

Thanks @Haworthia. He's mostly stopped forcing it so much since yesterday (he listened even though he said I was unreasonable) so his throat stopped bleeding, but I'll still remind him if he does it again.

@Lavenderee - the woman's a saint, clearly.