So, I've been playing around with my cough ever since reading Amy's post on coughing this weekend (Thanks Amy by the way!!!). I'm not sure if I'm doing right, but I've been trying it every fifteen minutes or so at work all day today and I was just asked by one of my support staff if I was sick because "that cough sounds wet", so perhaps I am making progress!
My stupid question is: how can you tell where stuff is coming from? After a few of these coughs I've noticed a glob of slime on the roof of my mouth, but I think this might have just come from my throat and not really my lungs? I can normally tell if it came out of my sinuses, but I don't know how to distinguish between lungs and my throat. For a cough to be productive, do I need to be pulling up hunks the size of marbles like come out of sinuses, or are smaller little bits like pea-size also considered sputum production? Any way to tell whether sputum in the throat that you pull up is from sinus stuff that you swallowed or lung stuff that you coughed up?
I've never paid much attention to my lungs previously, because the only time I've had problems was when I had raging sinus infections and so I've always thought of lower respiratory infections as side effects and haven't really concentrated. Only time I've paid attention to how I coughed was when I'd done it so much that I had costacondritis (no idea how to spell that), so this whole concept is pretty new.
Thanks!
My stupid question is: how can you tell where stuff is coming from? After a few of these coughs I've noticed a glob of slime on the roof of my mouth, but I think this might have just come from my throat and not really my lungs? I can normally tell if it came out of my sinuses, but I don't know how to distinguish between lungs and my throat. For a cough to be productive, do I need to be pulling up hunks the size of marbles like come out of sinuses, or are smaller little bits like pea-size also considered sputum production? Any way to tell whether sputum in the throat that you pull up is from sinus stuff that you swallowed or lung stuff that you coughed up?
I've never paid much attention to my lungs previously, because the only time I've had problems was when I had raging sinus infections and so I've always thought of lower respiratory infections as side effects and haven't really concentrated. Only time I've paid attention to how I coughed was when I'd done it so much that I had costacondritis (no idea how to spell that), so this whole concept is pretty new.
Thanks!