persistent cough with green mucus, fatigue. CT scan of sinus done today.

....I have difficulty breathing deeply, cough regularly, am achy, have NO ENERGY and now my neck is in pain constantly. Not sharp pain, but achy, all through the bottom and up to the base of my neck. I can't move my head from side to side (I noticed I'm moving my body to turn).

I again called the doctor and he said come back in - of course - but instead I tried a deep tissue massage - which killed while I had it - but now the pain seems a little less. Still I have no energy and feel generally ill. I am not used to being incapacitated like this - does anyone know what this nasty illness is?.....


I am a 22 year old super athletic girl who has recently overcome lyme disease. I was originally diagnosed with it when I was 7 and hospitalized and not properly treated afterward because doxycycline is too potent to treat a young child long term. Because of that over the years I suffered immensely. Dont get me wrong I was involved with anything and everything. Gymnastics, soccer, dance, lacrosse etc. It started about 8th grade when my mind just started to give way and I was doing worse and worse academically. I was daignosed with ADD only in my sr. year of high school and was treated for that with medication. I lost a lot of weight and was a totally different person so naturally I stopped. Around the same few years I started to be constantly sick, with a cold of some sort and chronic ear infections and coughing and achy everything and super tired. They always told me i had a sinus infection or the flu or it was jsut viral or this or that or the other thing. There iss no way somebody could be constantly sick like I was.

I then went off to play soccer at a D1 school and everything just crumbled. It got so bad with my memory that i couldnt remember if I washed my own hair in the shower. I constantly had to wear ankle braces and would stay in bed for days on end with headaches....which I thought were sinus related. It turns out that I had lyme disease and had lesions in my brain. I had to get 3 spinal taps to rid the pressure of those lesions in my brain as well as a number of oral medications nad 2 intravenous treatments.

This all started when I was 18 and I am finally back in school at 22.I urge you sincerely to get tested for lyme. Since I had been treated for it I have only had 1 cold because my roommate had one and I no longer have the sinus pressure or headaches or any of the listed above symptoms anymore. Lyme is the most misdiagnosed disease ever, they will tell you your depressedd or chronis fatigue syndrome or brusitus, 90% of the time its lyme and you get mistreated.

Just so you dont get to the point where I was just kncok it out of the way as a possibility as I would not wish this disease to effect anyone the way it did me. There are many more details I jsut gave the breif rundown. I hope you get better soon!

Please get tested for food allergies. These are common symptoms of gluten and/or dairy allergies.

I have had the same thing for five months...just coughing up green mucus...all morning. Dry cough at night.

Dr has said the lungs are clean...but, I still cough. Chest x-ray is set up. Been on three anti-biotics and steroids for a variety of possible issues. Nothing has worked.

May see ENT doctor soon. This is the first year this has ever happened to me...so, I doubt I have a deviated sep.

They say it is post-nasal drip...but, I'm not congested...and this is a new thing for me. How can it come on out of nowhere and last so long if it is only allergy-related post nasal drip.

Sometimes I think these doctors are m****s.

36 year old male here,

Similar problem: green sputum coughed up in the morning, approx. 15 mL each morning. No sinus pain but it could be one of the smaller sinuses. No nasal sputum expulsion at all. Initially had nearly normal energy levels. Have been on cephalexin (generic Keflex) for weeks for infection elsewhere and it has not cleared up the sputum. My family doc recommended saline spray...I decided to start with all-out irrigation (tilt the head sideways, flush with solution)...soon after a day of starting saline nasal irrigation (1% saline with sodium bicarbonate buffering agent) I fellt like I had the flu: total depletion of energy. I then switched to a saline spray and now get mild energy losses. Then stopped the spray and have a bit more energy. Went for lab test of sputum and white blood cell count (check of immunity system function); both normal.

My sinuses used to get infected once a year or so ever since childhood, and they always eventually cleared, usually through a combination of taking Sudafed, drinking liquids, and blowing my nose.

I did have a septoplasty years ago, as my septum had been deviated extremely when I was an infant(95% - 5%). I did not think to mention this to my doc but after reading here it seems pertinent to bring it up.

Can anyone provide an update on how their situations turned out? I have the exact thing this year that you guys experienced awhile back! Any advice, tips..I hope you aren't still suffering!!!

Thanks,
Megan

Add me to this list.  I have the same symptoms.  In February I caught a severe flu.  What followed was a recurring cold.  Every morning I cough to near choking.  Lots of plem.

What do we have?  I've learned of the same symptoms across the US to FL.  I'm in Alaska BTW.

I'm a healthy 50ish woman.  I'm used to sinus infections, but colds come & usually go.  This one never ends!

A steam room usually fixes any ailment, but this bug is steam room resistant!

yes, you need a ct scan in order for ent dr. to diagnosis your problem.

I had tons of ct scan, medications for sinus/allergies..finally I'm in

my 3rd week of surgery for deviated septum, sinus, and turbinates shaved down. It's a long process...but worth not suffering from coughing every single day for over 2yrs. I don't smoke/drink...and my life was horrible. Get the scan and find a good ENT surgeon to fix the problem...and the coughing with subside

good luck

I have asthma and came down with this wicked flue 6 days ago and it is a vicious flue that doesnt give up.I went for a cat san monday xray came back ok  2 days later i have huuuuge amounts of bright yellow /greenish mucus and i can barley breath . inhalers are not working they are makin it worse. so i went back to doc today and demaded to see the xray myself and she said oh i dont have it here they call it into us. well so shes taking someone elses word for it that everything is ok when it is not. In the end she said tell me what you need to fix the problem, i told her what another doc gave me last year (Prednisone 5 pills 50mg each for 5 days +14 Biaxin xl 500mg for 7 days.) I went and filled the scripts and took my meds 40 min ago and i can tell you it is working like a dream I can breath after only 40 min. If you have problems breathing go to the doc this will not go away on its own it needs help to dissolve this virus once and for all . I think it is pretty pathetic that I have to tell my doc what to prescribe to me cuz she doesnt have a clue. get a second and third opinion if nessessary .

I, it has been 2 yrs since your post your topic. Did you get better?

I got the symptoms recently. CT scan won't help, because it is a flu caused by bacteria. Check if your house has mold on the wall and hiding into the wall. Mold are very poisonous and dangerous for our health. Our lung reacts very easily expelling mucus as defense.

Hi Just forund this thread- my life partner has been suffering the same sympotoms as all of you for 20 years- he has had 2 sinus surgeries for pulups and now the ENT told him he will have to have another one in 3 years! that was the fianl straw- I found Underground Wellness Blof Talk Radio podcasts by Sean Croxten and his many guest have lead us down a path of Paleo Primal eating- ALL ORGANIC FOODS_- no surgar, no dairy ( if it is not raw) no grains, and no fruit (if you think you have a yeast infection). This new way of eating was has givien us relief but not total. At elast now we have other doctors who can look into this problem due to food allergies ( Dr Thomas OBryan) or parasites and yeast. Forget going to a regualr MD or ENT to solve this green mucus problem- you need to dig deeper into what you eat and drink and then work with a functional practioner to help you get your health back. Good Luck,.....being healhty is not easy but once you make the choice it will seem natural. Great books to read are: Paul Chek's"Eat move and Be Healthy" Dr Cate's " Deep Nutrition" and "The FUngal Link" as well as "the YeAST CONNECTION"

Any updates on chronic symptoms of heavy mucus and persistent cough from a year ago?

This is so discouraging.  I have the same problem.  I've had 3 or 5 prescriptions of Avelox over the past 8 months, and now my body has built a resistance against it.  I'm coughing up the green phlegm and have the neck pain and lack of energy.  I too usually get 2 sinus infections a year.  I've just been told by a walk-in clinic doctor (I have no insurance) t go see a ENT specialist.  But not sure I want to do that now after reading all your posts.  Why are we getting these infections?  Is it stress?  Poor diet? I don't smoke, rarely drink..  I am so discouraged.

Hi Louise and all, I believe as with my own experiences, that the people above all have a commonality, this is what I will call mucosa sensitivity predisposition syndrome which is actually waht makes the common flu or cold viruses (there are 99 cold viruses) more effective in making your life a misery for longer. A viruse's ultimate intention and design is to cause as much chaos to your system so that you have such a bad reaction that you die.This predisposition you have has probably been there all along starting from allergies in childhood or a bad incidence of flu etc. Whatever these origins, the current symptoms nearly always begin the same way. This is, the body reacting. With an allergy, its not the shell fish, the bee venom, snake bite etc that kills you but your particular body's reaction! Others are fine around you. With a virus, which I believe is the cause of 95% of the above accounts, its how your body reacts to the virus. Again the permutations here are the strength of the virus and its longevity, its type (ie what kind of reaction its designed to cause) ,your strength generally, including the above existent and severity of predispositional exacerbating factors. Most things start with a virus. The virus is the 'cut' into your internal immune system the same way as when you cut your skin with a knife. We very rarely get a bacteriological infection on its own without that first having been preceded by a virus or a cut. If the above people were dealing with a bacteria then the anti biotics given to them (ill advisedly too often) by the great doctors, would work.The fact that they don't is because you are dealing with either an existing virus at full swing in your body, or more commonly the remaining effects of the virus - which is basically, inflammation of tissue with that tissue trying to expel the cause. Whilst we smart humans have got stuff for the bacteria, we are nowhere near that with viruses. We have some immunizations but we cant kill a virus and we don't know when its first second of arrival is. The day you get that funny little shiver, or that sore throat or that trickle of mucous onto your lip - the virus that's caused these first tell tale reactions has been busy with you up to 2 days! This is why treating a cold sore (the reaction of the body to the herpes simplex virus) starts with that slight itch on the lip and its then that patients have to get their ACTIVIR ointment on 1 day later will be too late. The earlier the better. We cant do that with our internal effect viruses and besides there are many invading us all the time - most are dealt early fatal blows by our incredible and often abused and underperforming immune system. So all we can do is deal with the effects of a bad virus - our body's unhappy reaction. So most people have a runny nose etc etc and we treat that with the usual stuff not to cure ourselves but to dimish the uncomfortable symptoms of our reaction - thats all. In 5 days the average cold virus is finished or defeated and the reaction abates . Except for you, the predisposed. For you the reaction is worse. All our mucous membranes and particularly in the very difficult to drain sinus cavities, are turned into raging red inflammation. I believe that this excessive inflammation has a catch 22 effect in that it can't calm down. I believe that the more intervention you take ie , douche these cavities out - the more upset they become and so on so it becomes a case of the cure is worse than the disease. SO FINALLY I GET TO THE POINT. Surely we need to break the inflammation? If you are bad, there are various anti inflammatories. Prednisone sometimes helps but it is a bit over the top. The one I know here in Cape Town South Africa is a tablet called CATAFLAM D by NOVARTIS. Along with this carry on using a antihistamine there are non drowsy ones as well as a decongestant such as pseudoephedrine in combination. Drink a lot of water and yes the other comment was rest your body. When your body's trying to get the better of a thing as malicious as a virus, the last thing it need s is for you to be exerting stress of any kind on it at the same time - that's obvious. For the future you might want to bear this in mind - you probably have a weakness in this department so you've got to do the same things as someone who has a weakness in the heart has or anything else. This is, you have to know what any other triggers are such as food , sulphur as a preservative, dust, chlorine whatever it is that you find gets you going and AVOID them for ever.Then you have to develop an immune system that is much better than the one you've got. You have to find alternative treatments (cataflam as a anti inflammatory cannot be taken indefinitely and certainly not cortisone) Instead of the prescribing technicians (doctors)You have to consult homeopaths, chiropractors etc who do not work with chemical hard line drugs. You have to become the toughest virus' toughest opponent. Hope you turn the corner.

In my case I had: persistent deep green mucus in my lungs that was hard to get out and I would hack and hack. turned out I had bolster pillows on my bed that needed laundering. Once I put them in the washing machine, my symptoms cleared up over time. Perhaps there was some kind of mold in there. I don't know but the idea that this is coming from mold somewhere is a good lead to pursue.

I have something like what you are describing, and so far, i Have Sjrogrens (neck pain) and Lupus. Started with a CMV virus. Get some ANA tests done and CMV. Still don't know why I have the cough after a year. Had antibiotics, prednisone 3 times (helped a lot) I am on plaquinil daily. i wish you luck. It is the pits! Go to a good rheumatologist.....