My name is Danny. I have been reading this messageboard for a while now and so has my wife. I'm 36, diagnosed at birth because my older brother has it. I have two copies of deltaF508 (gap-tooth smile sort of).
I had hemoptysis very occasionally in my 20's, maybe once a year. Then my rheumatoid arthritis came back after a long absence (about 24 yrs). Thinking it might do some good I took a large dose of fish oil (2-1000mg pills twice a day). During that time I had hemoptysis more regularly. The bleeding was several episodes a day for three or four days every few weeks and then larger, longer lasting events that could be re-triggerted very easily (most impressive was 1/3 cup, that was bad). I had to avoid lying down rapidly or sometimes at all, bend over or generally anything that made the blood slosh upwards in the body and blow out the weak spots in the lungs. The larger or more frequent episodes had me resorting to iv antibiotics for a couple of weeks through home health care (I don't do hospital treatments). It helped for 2-4 months, 6 if lucky.
So one day I read something about how fish oil thins the blood and decide to quit taking the pills. The bleeding stopped, at first for a month at a time then more then almost entirely until I forgot all the behaviors I had learned like no bending over. It still happens but is infrequent again.
It restarted on a trip to upstate New York and Vermont after stopping the fish oil but quit again almost immediately when we returned to the midwest. Thin mountain air? Who knows.
I know that doesn't mean fish oil was to blame but the 3 yrs of frequent hemoptysis coincided exactly with when I started the fish oil and when I stopped.
Danny
