Looking for some answers regarding Bronciectisis

Hello Simon, it's a tricky one really, yes maybe you weren't diagnosed early enough and had it for a while. Is your mucus easy to bring up and what colour is it. 

The cause of bronchiectasis is often hard to pin down. For about half of  all patients it's clearly a particular damaging infection (e.g. TB) or something that had physically got stuck in the lungs and damaged them. But for about half there is a collective shrug of the shoulders and it is 'idiopathic' - or, in English, 'we don't know, just one of those things.'

The classic definition of bronchiectasis is as a vicious circle. Infection leads to inflammation leads to damage to structure of the lung leads to inflammation and infection and... 

The normal structure of the lungs is 'designed' to keep bugs out of the lower lung. So damage to the physical shape, or damage to the little hairs  that line the tubes and help bring inhaled stuff up to be coughed out can cause infections. Also a possible problem is an over production of the mucus or poor clearance of the mucus (like in cystic fibrosis). 

All of these things can lead to mucus collecting and acting as a perfect breeding ground for bugs.

Note from the above you can see that inflammation is important. Asthma is inflammation. Unsurprisingly about half of all Bx sufferers have asthma.

So to answer your question. Bronchiectasis could be regarded as sometimes the end stage of a lot of infections and asthma. It's a progressive vicious circle that hit a 'tipping point'.

The next question is why you have had all these infections and asthma. Was it a problem in the immune system? A problem in the structure of the lung etc etc. 

The thing is - and it's not a very satisfactory answer - it generally doesn't matter. There are certain things that they will test for which could indicate an underlying problem that needs to be treated as well (I suspect they will hit the asthma quite hard), but it doesn't alter the fact that your lungs are damaged and you need to be treated for Bx.

The aim is to stop any further progressive damage. Basically to break the vicious circle. So hence the clearing of the chest, the anti inflammatory inhalers, prophylactic antibis etc.

Hope that helps.

Stay well, good luck

S

If your mucus is clear, that's a very good sign. Chest Heart & Stroke Scotland had a very good little leaflet " living with bronchiectasis". Recommend it- it's very clear and also has a mucus color chat. Good for checking how you are doing?

S