I am a family member of someone with stage 3 COPD. I worry she is nearing stage 4 very soon.
My question and concern is around her very high mucus production and her constant small unproductive coughs which sound like she is drowning in mucus, but I have to remind her constantly to keep coughing enough to get it up and out of her lungs. When she does cough productively, it doesn’t take much effort as I mentioned she has very high levels of mucus consistently, and even worse in times of flare ups. She takes multiple inhalers and doesn’t seem to try and cough intentionally, but rather avoid coughs. She only coughs when she gets a tickle in her throat which forces her to cough but she suppresses it immediately. She needs to be reminded to cough it up instead of just letting it sit there building up. My worry is that this small amount of coughing and inconsistent effort to get it out is not enough to remove the mucus blocking her airways so she is steadily getting worse and could be potentially making her life easier if she would just commit to proper coughing techniques and frequency. I haven’t been able to find much information on the benefits of effectively and forcefully coughing out mucus and how frequent is too frequent or not enough?
She has always avoided anything that is uncomfortable and anything physical activity related, even before she had severe symptoms. I believe the avoidance of anything that makes her out of breath is not helping this situation. By complete avoidance I fear this will progress much faster and her flare ups will continue to get worse.
She has a decent doctor but she denies how bad her issues are and has never stopped smoking. Not much help on this front.
It’s hard to bring up the subject with her because I know it’s a huge source of anxiety for her but if I could just get her to understand how other people have managed with high amounts of mucus this might help. Any suggestions for how frequent to cough it up? It honestly seems like she has enough to do it all day but I do realize that there is a fine balance between doing more damage by overexerting herself and over coughing.
Any advice from caregivers, or COPD patients with high mucus production? What’s a good rule of thumb for this type of situation? Other than consulting a doctor because if you know stubborn people like her, you’ll know they will not listen to doctors ever. I think she’s more likely to hear from someone who has COPD similar to her own
thank you!!