KLAXON- Persistant cough with mucus (warning-pic included)

[Lemansky]

This has been going on for nearly 10 years I realised today and the doctors still aren't really helping. I apologise for the length of this!

It started after I had a virus back in 2007, with a cough so violent it was making me throw up. When it went away the cough stayed and I was coughing up mucus too.
I went back to the doctors numerous times. They all listened to my chest, said it was clear and that I was fine. After a couple of years one doctor did a chest x-ray & tested the mucus, and at that point I had a chest infection & the x-ray showed a damaged/inflamed lung so I was given antibiotics.

Still the cough stayed and in 2012 my mum forced me back to the Drs as I was getting married and she said I couldn't be coughing up the aisle! I ended up seeing a nurse who tested me for asthma, which she thought I didn't have, but she put me on inhalers -blue & brown- anyway.

I'm still on the inhalers. I never use the blue one as I don't need it but used the brown one twice a day. It seemed to work for a bit, but the cough etc. is still very much there.

I have also been tried on tablets for reflux, which just made me sicker & a nasal spray which helped during the first course but did nothing when prescribed again.

I was referred to hospital around 2013-14 and had lots of x-rays, spirometry tests etc. and they decided I had hypersensitive airways and to keep using the inhalers. Every time I do the spirometry test with the blue inhaler my lung function gets worse after it's use. The Drs are always amazed but it never leads to anything further.

The mucus that I cough up varies in colour, sometimes it has specks of blood in it, sometimes it's clear & sometimes like today it's yellow.

A year ago I changed Drs, but my new Drs still don't have the notes from my old surgery or the hospital, despite them apparently requesting them numerous times. If I get ill, I get chest infections & have to try & explain it all to them, but they don't seem to be overly worried about it all, but I'm at my wits end-surely this isn't normal to have a cough like this for such a long time?

I saw a different Dr 3 weeks ago who gave me a different inhaler, which is doing exactly the same as the brown one as far as I can see... nothing.
I just don't know what to do anymore, has anyone else experienced anything like this?
Thanks so much for taking the time to read.

Bump

Hi - rarely come on here, hence delay in replying - but have you considered / heard of aspergillosis? I only know this because I have been under the weather since early autumn last year, I did have bad childhood asthma, generally well controlled as adult, and I'm an allergic kind of person, but I had not heard of it before. I had persistent phlegmy cough for about 18 months 2011- 2013 then the return of similar thing late last year, - I thought triggered by an old uncultivated apple orchard, long story. Long saga of different treatments and referrals, but eventual conclusion of allergic aspergillosis (APBA) but there are various infectious varieties as well - if you look on FB there is a group- Aspergillosis Support - and lots of info plus I did see someone had posted a mucus photo, as it's a characteristic of aspergillus (the mould that causes it) illnesses. It's not super common, and I don't think you can have the allergic variety unless you have asthma or cystic fibrosis, so don't want to send you on inappropriate direction, but equally, it took 7 or 8 months for me to get diagnosed and lots of trips to GP, plus a persistent chest infection that eventually turned into pneumonia. If you do have it, sounds like the UK is leading place for research and treatment, so that is something. Good luck

Marking place - back the morra OP - I think I might be the same.

Hi, thanks so much for replying! I've never heard of that before but I do have a follow up appointment in a couple of weeks.
I just feel like there's no end to this & that I'm not being taken seriously.
I really appreciate you taking the time to reply.

My thought on reading your post was bronchiectasis, but assume the hospital would have thought of this? I am not a medical person but could you ask for a referral to a respiratory physician? I think that is what i would do

Thanks, I have a feeling that mu check up in a couple of weeks is with a respiratory physician. I think I'll have to be strong & explain it all to him properly and not be fobbed off with the same old thing, see if it makes any difference.

Does anyone know how you can make a new surgery actually get all your old medical records from yurt old one, as I think that would really help too.

Had my checkup yesterday and have been put on a pill as well as inhalers which should rule out whether it's asthma or not completely.

The Dr also picked up on a mention of bronchiectasis in an old letter from the hospital which he did have one file, and no one else has picked up on, so he wants to refer me to the hospital again and have a CT scan as apparently that's the only way to be diagnosed.

So hopefully some progress at last...

super, hope you have had a scan and an appointment with a respiratory physician