Bringing up mucus

People with COPD produce extra mucus. The extra mucus can collect in your lungs, which makes breathing more difficult and puts you at increased risk of lung infections. Special ways of coughing, including deep coughing and huff coughing, can help you bring up that mucus. Be sure to use your inhaler before you try to bring up extra mucus. The medicine will open your lungs and loosen the mucus.

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Deep coughing: This technique is not a hacking cough, and it's much stronger than clearing the throat. Deep coughing will not tire you out the way a long coughing spell will.

1. Take a deep breath.
2. Use your stomach muscles to cough hard, one to two times, not more.
3. Spit out the mucus.

Huff coughing: Do a huff cough if you feel mucus moving.

1. Take a really deep breath.
2. Use your stomach muscles to make a series of three rapid exhalations with the airway open, making a "Ha, ha, ha" sound.
3. Follow with controlled diaphragmatic breathing.
4. Spit out the mucus.

Your doctor may also speak with you about other techniques and devices for bringing up mucus, including:

Small devices you breathe into, such as Acapella DM®, Acapella Choice®, and Flutter Valve®; The Vest®, an inflatable vest that shakes the chest; and postural drainage and clapping, two techniques that use gravity to promote drainage from the lungs.