Excessive mucous production

[Superzob]

I usually respond to other people's posts, and have only ever started a new post once before, but I'm hoping that someone out there may have an answer to this particular issue.

About 3 years ago, I was diagnosed with late onset asthma and moderate/severe fixed small airways obstruction, after 6 years of incessant winter colds and a little chest tightness. Symbicort seems to have sorted those problems, but I tend to get excessive mucous production, though it's quite thin. My consultant, a nice but quite abrupt guy, ignored this for 3 years (on the basis that my chest is clear), but this year put me on montelucast (which seems to do nothing other than make me tired), and referred me for physiotherapy to remove deep-seated mucous, which does nothing at all because the mucous seems to be quite high up in the throat. I'm trying N-Acetyl cysteine, but both that and carbocysteine are designed to thin mucous, which is not really the problem, so I'm not sure whether it's having much effect.

If anyone out there has a solution, I would welcome your comments

Many thanks

[Hidden]

Feeling that mucus is in the throat can be quite misleading, especially when the mucus is very thin. This is because the thin mucus works its way up from lower down in the lungs and you become conscious of it when it reaches the top. You are taking two products to thin the mucus and the fact that it is so thin makes it appear that there is a lot.

I don’t take carbocysteine because it makes me feel sick and I don’t like the extent to which it thins the mucus. I prefer to expel the mucus by breathing tecniques and feel that it gives me more control.

I presume that your con is an asthma doctor? Have you always had persistent mucus with your asthma? If not, I suggest that you find the name of a consultant who specialises in bronchiectasis, take it to your GP and get a referral. Long term asthma can result in bronchiectasis developing. This is often missed by doctors who are only looking at the asthma. The mucus can be a sign of the bronch. A ct scan and consultation with a specialist who can recognise this would be useful, if only to discount the possibility.

[Superzob in reply to Hidden]

Thanks, Littlepom. You're expertise in this field is clearly second to none. My consultant did tell me on this occasion that I had Bronchiectasis - apparently, the CT scan had showed this. I suspect he has been biding his time to see how the Symbicort treatment is working (it may be that that is sufficient in some cases, but not in others). I am actually relieved that he seems to be on the right track, but that others on the Asthma forum have found that montelucast and physio don't work for them (I did have a bad experience with a consultant for another condition who gave me the wrong antibiotics twice, so I'm not a great fan of specialists!).

Nellysasthma has given me some alternatives which might be worth trying and are available over the counter, so I'll give those a shot.

Thanks again for taking the trouble to explain this so well!

[Hidden in reply to Superzob]

Montelucast is an asthma drug and not used for bronchiectasis. Over the counter drugs do nothing for bronch. Fostair is an asthma and copd drug but some bronchs use it.

You aren’t having any treatment or management of your bronchiectasis.

The main treatment and management for bronch is very different to asthma. The most important thing is emptying those lungs every day to get rid of the fluid that bacteria like to breed in. Antibiotics are given orally, nebulised or by IV depending on the bug. They have to be tailored to the bacteria. This is why you need a bronch specialist. Asthma specialists are very good in their field but have very little experience of bronch. It is a true specialism and we are all different.