IPF Cough vs Bronchitis Cough

[Alex Marion]

Hi: my wife started with some coughing a few months ago, and it was progressing, till i read about some Manuka Honey, we bougth a jar at costco and , she star taking 1/2 a teaspoon in the morning and 1/2 at nigth. so far is working well , reduced the cough by 80% as long as she does not get anxiaty.

[blucoyo]

Thank you !!

[Terrance Krouth]

Hi blucoyo and Happy Thanksgiving to you.

I 6 months post transplant and have been fighting coughing both before and after transplant. Coughing can be caused by many different things and diagnosing and treating a cough is hard work.

Pre=transplant I developed a bad cough and my PCP prescribed Albuterol, then later we added Flovent inhaler which is fluticasone for your lungs. That helped a little, but still left me with a lot of coughing. After that I had a regular appointment with my pulmonologist and he said we have to stop this cough and we started a very aggressive treatment. He added 50mg/day of prednisone for a month then tapered off over 6 months. He also prescribed Pulmacourt nebulizer. after about 4 months of treatment, the cough slowly improved and later stopped altogether.

<font face=”inherit”>Post transplant the cough came back. This time the high dose prednisone was not an option due to the other meds I’m taking. We added benzonatate 3X per day, Flovent, albuterol nebulizer and later lidocaine nebulizer. This all helped, but I still was coughing quite a bit. My next stop was to visit an ENT that specialized in cough treatment. When I went for the appointment, beside the doctor, there were 2 speech </font>pathologists present. The doctor inserted a scope through may nose and we did swallowing tests and various speech and sound tests.

The results were that the whole area is irritated with lots of inflammation, likely from being intubated and multiple bronchoscopies. They also found some thick areas on my vocal chords. They also told me I am not breathing enough when I speak, the pressure gets too low in my lungs and that causes a cough reflex. I will be doing some speech therapy in the coming months to learn proper breathing techniques. The doctor expects the inflammation to come down over time.

<font face=”inherit”>Besides all that, my lungs still </font>don’t<font face=”inherit”> like it when I take a deep breath or breathe hard which also causes coughing. Coughing problems can be very complex and are often multi factorial. I hope sharing my experience helps some. I hope you have a great Holiday weekend. </font>

Terry

[blucoyo]

Thank you Terry😀 for the useful information and wishing you the best with your transplant.

Richard

[Donna]

I am not good at figuring this site out. Where is the best most affordable loaded to get Manual Honey? They have so many on Amazon.

[Terri]

Hi Blucoyo, welcome to the forum! I’m not sure how you would tell the difference between bronchitis cough and IPF cough. Do you have any other symptoms? I had pneumonia earlier this year, and was coughing quite a bit, and also had fever and chills, and my chest felt congested. I have a cough with my pulmonary fibrosis that comes and goes and sometimes my chest will hurt a little bit. I use honey as well. I usually take a teaspoon anytime I feel I need to because of my cough and I often take a teaspoon when I go to bed as well. It works pretty well for me. You might want to go back to your doctor and have him/her listen to your lungs again. Do you see a pulmonologist?

[blucoyo]

HI, thank you much for ypur response,,Ive found the honey does help.

And thank you for the welcome,apologies for the delay in responding.

[Ken C]

Do you have a humidifier?

[blucoyo]

No,,thinking about getting one.

thank you !!

[Margaret]

I have a severe dry cough originating deep in my lungs from PF (radiation induced) that would cause me to pass out momentarily from a large drop in oxygen. It happened during a PFT when that was seen on the monitor. The cough is now pretty well controlled by Flovent.

I have had both bronchitis with a wet cough higher up and pneumonia with a wet cough deep in my lungs which felt like drowning, neither of which was helped by Flovent. Albuterol helped the bronchitis cough and I had to wait for the pneumonia to clear for that cough to stop. I can distinguish between the different causes which is a help but coughs in general are tough to treat. It’s very much a matter of trying possible remedies to find one that helps you.

Margaret

[blucoyo]

Hi Margaret,

Thank you for the info and hoping all is well with you today. I did have bronchitis a while back,but now I think it is the progressing IPF. A deep breath triggers a cough but honey helps.

Thanks again..

[Amil]

Hi. I have NSIP PF. I have a productive and dry cough on and off. I take robitussin DM every 4 hours and then a cough drop. I use cough drops in between and drink lots of water. Also if you can breathe more through your nose than your mouth that helps. Always check with your doctor to make sure it’s ok. Good luck and God bless. We are in this together my friend.

[blucoyo]

Thanks Amil,,I do take the cough syrup acouple times a day.

😃

[Kerry]

Hi Blucoyo,
I’ve had the dreaded IPF cough for years, long before I was diagnosed 6 years ago. It’s a dry cough and I’ve never associated the dry cough with lung congestion.

I live in Australia and in a couple of states here the government runs a respiratory physiotherapy program. This program basically teaches you how to breath using your diaphragm to expel as much air as possible before taking a short breath in, you breath like a singer. With practice it really helps with avoiding breathlessness. I found it difficult to begin with but it’s really helped a great deal.

Hope this is a little bit helpful
Kerry

[Neha]

Hello,

I consulted a pulmonologist at my work and here is what she said about the difference between a cough caused by IPF vs bronchitis. THe difference is in the pathology. IPF tends to have a dry cough whereas bronchitis can be a cough heavy with phlegm. Also in IPF, cough is not improved with bronchodilators because it is not an airway problem where as bronchitis is an airway problem and cough usually responds to a bronchodilator. Additionally, IPF cough progressively gets worse as the fibrosis gets worse but with COPD, viral or asthma bronchitis, the cough can be stablilized to a certain degree.

Hope this helps.

[blucoyo]

Thank you sorry about the delayed response..😀

Richard