I felt something coming on last Tuesday night...sore throat and a bit of coughing. Wednesday morning I was coughing more, having some achy muscles, chills and the mucus I was coughing up was light yellow. I tried to get into our urgent care center to avoid ER, so I could get some antibiotics. I couldn't get in. By the time I got in Thursday afternoon my mucus was bright green and the the doctor said my chest was extraordinarily tight and prescribed antibiotics and a symbicort inhaler (for two weeks...in addition to my spiriva respimat and rescue inhaler). She said I should've come in sooner. I asked her if this was an exacerbation as I haven't really been sick in 3 years (aside from covid in the fall), and the cold/flu seemed to progress so fast. She said she thought so. So it's 4.5 days later and I feel pretty good. Mucus is lighter again (light yellow) and shortness of breath is my normal level at rest. 2 questions about this:
1) will this have damaged my lungs more?
2) should my mucus be going back to clear before I start walking/exercising again? Will it go back to clear or will it always stay yellow now?
Also a covid question. I coughed the first two days of covid (a dry hacking cough) and felt shorter of breath. By the third day, when I went to ER the doctor said my lungs were quite clear. She gave me antibiotics though, in case of covid pneumonia. Although the coughing stopped and I just generally felt weak, I still had more shortness of breath exercising for at least a month, and my breathing rate per minute at night has been 1 point or more higher (15 to 16 on average...sometimes 16.5). Could covid have done some damage even though it didn't seem to have affected my lungs that much at the time?