Is it normal to periodically cough up a piece of phlegm/mucus? I was drinking my coffee this morning and felt a tickle in my lungs and (sorry if TMI) coughed up a piece of brown mucus. I rarely have mucous, only a tiny bit every 8 months or so. But it has never been brown — usually white or slightly yellow.
I don’t know a great deal about human anatomy (airway pipes vs. drinking pipes), so is it possible that the mucus was brown because I was also drinking coffee at the time I coughed the mucus out?
I made a mistake of googling “brown mucus” and up popped a lot of results saying this means progression of lung disease and other sites said it means that there’s blood in the mucus. Can anybody weigh in? Thank you so much!