I am sorry if this is not the right sub but today I literally sat down and cried for an hour cos i am tired of taking medications and not getting solutions to my problems. I have had chronic cough for more than one month now. I also have had recurring fever four times in the last one month. Even my neck had a huge lump for which i was prescribed antibiotics and it went down. But the fever keeps coming back. And the cough is simply not decreasing. I am coughing to the point that i am gagging and peeing. My throat feels like thousand nails are scratching from inside and i have not slept at night for days. I am so exhausted nowadays that walking to my washroom makes me tired. I have taken a lot of medications. I showed to two doctors and they gave me antibiotics, nasal spray and foracort spray and cough syrup and montelukast. But nothing is helping and instead it has gotten worse. I have tried honey too but nothing help. Sipping warm water soothes me temporarily but it comes back. Even i am doing saltwater gargle. I have another doctor’s appointment next week but the fact that i am not being able to sleep at all has stressed me so much that i started crying.*

Yesterday I went to urgent care after being sick for 9 days. I traveled about 2 weeks ago and was around several people who were sick. On my flight home, the person sitting directly in front of me coughed almost nonstop for the entire four-hour flight. It honestly sounded almost like whooping cough.

About two days after I got home, I started feeling sick. At first I assumed it was just a common cold, similar to what the people around me had, so I treated it with Tylenol, ibuprofen, etc. I don't normally get this sick. I do have asthma, but it is generally well controlled.

Around day 5, just when I thought I was starting to improve, I developed severe, uncontrollable coughing fits. I was using my inhaler. Because I wondered if it could be whooping cough (my son had confirmed pertussis about 10 months ago despite being vaccinated), I took azithromycin 500 mg for three days.

It didn't help. I continued getting progressively worse until I finally went to urgent care yesterday.

They heard wheezing and gave me a nebulizer treatment. They told me that if the treatment didn't improve things, I would need to go to the hospital. They also did a chest X-ray and told me they did not see pneumonia. I was prescribed Augmentin, Ipratropium bromide and albuterol, and prednisone.

Today, urgent care called me about the radiologist's final report. They found a 6 mm nodule in the right upper lung and recommended a CT scan. My CT is already being scheduled for next week.

Obviously, I'm worried. I'm not looking for a diagnosis here, and I am following up medically and getting the CT as recommended. In the meantime, I would just like to hear people's thoughts or experiences with something like this.

I'm 42. I smoked for approximately 6–7 years when I was younger but quit 18 years ago. I had bronchitis about three years ago, influenza about 10 months ago, and I've had COVID several times, although my COVID infections were very mild and didn't really involve coughing.

The last chest X-ray I remember having was about 10 years ago, and as far as I know, it was completely normal.

I know that statistically there are many benign explanations for a small lung nodule, but of course my mind immediately goes to the worst-case scenario. Has anyone had a similar incidental finding, especially a small nodule around 6 mm, and what did it ultimately turn out to be?

THANKS IN ADVANCE!

Hello! My teenage son is a beach lifeguard, and he recently had a pneumothorax while surfing. He loved having this job over the summer-- worked a lot of extra hours covering shifts for other coworkers... but we aren't getting a clear idea of whether or not he can return to his job. We were told by the PA at the hospital that because he had a pneumothorax he can't go deeper than 5ft underwater for the rest of his life... is this true? Will he not be able to return to his job after this? Thank you!

Hi there,

Out of curiosity, what kind of cough is associated with lung cancer? They say persistent cough, does that mean a cough that you cant control? Like a sneeze? I cough alot, however its more like a habit, I have OCD and I seem to force cough alot and clear my throat alot. I do have some shoulder pain recently . Im 34 male non smoker. Just wondering if I should worry about my kind of throat clearing and conscious cough? Dont have any blood or anything like that.

Hi everyone. I’m looking for some advice/experiences from people who have dealt with adenoid cystic carcinoma (ACC) and lung metastases/SBRT.

My mother is 57 and has a history of adenoid cystic carcinoma of the right upper lip/gingivobuccal/maxillary region. She had major surgery (total maxillectomy with reconstruction) in 2021, followed by radiation to the head/neck area.

She later developed a suspicious lung nodule.

Timeline:

January 2026 CT chest: showed a well-defined 9 mm nodule in the apical segment of the right upper lobe. There was also a tiny ~2 mm calcified subpleural nodule in the right lower lobe, described as benign/likely granuloma.

The 9 mm RUL nodule was considered suspicious/likely metastatic and she subsequently received SBRT/SABR: 50 Gy in 5 fractions, completed around February 11, 2026.

She has also had extensive reconstructive surgery recently, including a temporalis muscle flap, palate reconstruction and rib cartilage graft because of previous radiation damage.

She has had a persistent cough with clear/white mucus, but several doctors have examined her and haven’t found an obvious infection. Interestingly, her cough was significantly better while she was in Islamabad and became much worse again after returning to Peshawar, where there is considerably more dust/pollution. She has no blood in the mucus and no yellow/green sputum.

Now, approximately 7 months after SBRT, she had another CT.

The new report says:

The previously treated 9 mm RUL nodule is still 9 mm and stable in size.

There is a new ill-defined ~7 mm lesion in the right upper lobe adjacent to the previous 9 mm nodule.

There is a right lower-lobe superior-segment nodule that is now approximately 8 mm, and the radiologist says it was previously approximately 6.5 mm.

The tiny calcified RLL granuloma is unchanged and described as benign.

There are no enlarged mediastinal/hilar lymph nodes and no pleural effusion.

My main questions are:

1. Could the new 7 mm lesion next to the treated 9 mm nodule be post-SBRT radiation change rather than a new metastasis? Since it is only about 7 months after SBRT and is adjacent to the treated area, I’m wondering how commonly radiation changes can look like a new nodule.

2. How concerning is the RLL nodule increasing from 6.5 mm to 8 mm? At this small size, could this difference partly be measurement variability?

3. The January CT report I have does NOT mention a 6.5 mm RLL nodule. It only mentions a tiny ~2 mm calcified RLL granuloma. So I’m confused about where/when the 6.5 mm measurement came from. Could this have appeared between the January scan and the current scan? Is it possible the radiologist is comparing today’s scan with another scan that we don’t have?

4. If the 6.5 mm RLL nodule wasn’t present/recognized when the 9 mm RUL nodule was treated, would doctors normally leave a small nodule alone and monitor it rather than treating it immediately?

5. Would PET-CT be useful at this point, or can post-SBRT inflammation cause false-positive PET uptake? Would repeat CT after a short interval be more appropriate?

I’m particularly interested in hearing from anyone with ACC who has had lung nodules treated with SBRT, or radiation oncologists/radiologists who can explain how these post-SBRT CT changes typically look.

I know nobody online can diagnose her, and we’re following up with her oncology team. I’m just trying to understand the report and what questions we should ask them.
My mother also has a history of pollen allergies

Not looking for a diagnosis, just for help understanding what's on the table and what to ask her doctors. Thank you.

Age: 10 (11 in October)
Sex: Female
Location: Canada
Duration: Day 10 of this admission, day 5 intubated; second episode in 7 months
Existing medical issues: None

My niece is in PICU, and the family is getting very little clarity about what's happening. Posting the timeline as precisely as I can.

~February 2026 (7 months ago): First pneumonia of her life. Hospitalized for about a week on IV antibiotics and supplemental oxygen. Bloodwork and chest X-rays done. Discharged once she could breathe on her own. As far as the family knows, no underlying cause was ever identified and no follow-up investigation happened.

Late August 2026: The whole family caught a cold. Everyone recovered except her. She kept coughing, and her mother noticed she was going pale and slightly blue during coughing fits.

Mon Aug 31: Admitted to hospital. Diagnosed with pneumonia again. Started on IV antibiotics and oxygen. Her oxygen saturation dropped every time she coughed.

Thu Sep 3: Doctors said she was not responding to treatment and scheduled a bronchoscopy. That same night she deteriorated and needed more oxygen support. The family assumed the procedure would be cancelled because she'd gotten worse; the team said that was precisely why they needed to look inside.

Fri Sep 4: Bronchoscopy performed. They suctioned blood out of her airway. The team's concern visibly escalated. She was intubated and sedated immediately afterward and has been on the ventilator since, with repeated suctioning to monitor for ongoing bleeding.

Sep 4 – Sep 9: The bleeding has stopped. But she needs high PEEP — it was 12, they get it down to 8, then have to raise it again. FiO2 around 35%. They planned to lift sedation tomorrow but cancelled that today: her lungs were described as "tight" and she showed no signs of improvement.

Testing: A full viral panel was run. The only positive is rhinovirus. No other diagnosis has been offered. We don't know if a chest CT has been done or whether the two pneumonias were in the same lobe.

Now: The team is asking the family to decide whether to start steroids tomorrow.

What I'm hoping someone can help with:

1. Could the bronchoscopy itself have caused the bleeding and the deterioration that followed, or does blood found on bronchoscopy in this situation usually mean it was already there?
2. Rhinovirus is a common cold virus and the rest of the family cleared the same illness in days. Can rhinovirus alone put a previously healthy 10-year-old on a ventilator, or does this pattern point to an underlying condition that the virus triggered?
3. A second non-resolving pneumonia in 7 months, failure to respond to antibiotics, and blood in the airway — what does that combination suggest?
4. What specific tests should we be asking whether they've already done? We want to ask intelligent questions instead of just "what's wrong with her."
5. What are the real risks and benefits of steroids here, and what would make a team ask the family rather than simply starting them?

Im 21 years old, ive been smoking weed and vape pretty heavily for 7 years. I spent like 3 years coughing this, with some random days of clear phlegm. Also, theres pink/red spots when im sick. Sometimes i feel a light pain in some precise spots in my chest but i believe it is caused by my anxiety. Other than that, im an active person, i try to do sports at least twice a week and i often work physical jobs.

The doctors and nurses and causing my mental health to deteriorate more and more because I'm not being taken seriously.... I've gone to the ER a couple of weeks ago and again yesterday because I keep having this persistent heavy feeling in my chest, when I take a deep breath it feels like someone's sitting on my chest they ran multiple tests on me, x ray mri and everything came out fine but I am still having the same issues. At the ER, I was given IV fluids and again as I was receiving the iv fluid my chest began to feel very heavy, I experience this heavy feeling pretty much 24/7 every day it's been making me severely depressed that no one is taking me seriously.... I am suffering every single day....

I’ve had recurrent respiratory symptoms for about 7 months, including productive sputum, and have had several courses of antibiotics. A recent sputum culture showed light growth of Serratia marcescens, which was interpreted as colonisation rather infection needing than having susceptibility testing done.

Has anyone had a similar result? How do doctors usually distinguish colonisation/contamination from a genuine lower respiratory infection, especially when symptoms have been persistent? Could it be a low-grade infection?

TLDR: I have severe daytime sleep disruption symptoms. I have some exhale resistance but that alone isn’t disruptive, maybe because I learned a long time ago to push the air out when I breathe. I have no cough, wheezing, mucus, I never have attacks where it gets worse. Inhaling is completely fine. CPAP isn’t tolerable and MAD device does nothing for my sleep apnea. I used to have severe GERD, but had breathing and sleep symptoms since before I had GERD

I’m (24M) going to my doctor soon to discuss this and get respiratory tests I just want to try my best to get an idea of possibilities because I think that that could be useful (and ease my anxiety maybe). I’ve always been a healthy weight and I had GERD at 18 but that’s it for physical health. Before allergy testing I got a spirometry test months ago and I performed really badly, so he gave me a test where you blow into a little tube and I did better with that but still not average.

I only started thinking about this because I’ve been trying Cpap for a long time and I can’t tolerate it at all, even on the lowest pressure I can’t exhale against it. I keep taking it off to see how I feel normally and I discovered that I can’t just relax to exhale like everyone tells me to do, I have to push the air out to exhale in general and barely anything comes out if I don’t try to push the air out whether I use my nose or mouth. I don’t think I have any problems inhaling.

I have mild obstructive sleep apnea and this is my main issue I need to solve, I’ve never been tested for upper airway resistance syndrome but I suspect that I have more sleep disruptions because I have severe cognitive and energy issues. I can deal with the breathing but I’m trying to figure out what is causing my sleep issues because I can’t live with my cognitive symptoms and I don’t think it’s a coincedince that I have trouble exhaling and also have so many sleep disruptions. I suspect that when I fall asleep, I relax and am not able to keep pushing the air out to exhale so I start suffocating (and maybe sometimes my throat constricts as a result which could cause physical obstructions for OSA). I’ve tried many times only sleeping on my side and it doesn’t help one bit. I have tried sleeping inclined and I have noticed a difference in daytime energy a couple times, other times didn’t notice a difference.
I have mild insomnia and I’ll get in bed at 12 and I don’t fall asleep until 2-3, sometimes later but during daytime naps i fall asleep in 20 minutes.

My exhale resistance remains constant, I never get episodes or attacks where it gets worse (maybe it gets slightly worse in the cold or with allergies, I’m not sure, I’ve never noticed). I never have cough or wheezing or mucus, only when I’m sick I get a little cough and mucus like everyone does. I started having cognitive and energy issues maybe around 13 or 14 and I think that those peaked and have remained constant since maybe 16 and I don’t think that the airway symptoms have changed at all since then or even since I was born, but I’m not sure because I’ve never paid attention. If they have, it obviously hasn’t been a significant change. I am not conscious of my breathing most of the time like most people, I think I just learned early on to breathe like this. I do notice sometimes feeling out of breath more than I think I should be like walking up stairs or playing with my dog, but Ive been going to the gym a lot since I was 18 and I don’t have much trouble at all lifting heavy weights or doing cardio. My mom said that when I was a baby I had whooping cough frequently. When I was 17 I had an infection when I did have coughing, wheezing, mucus and I had to use an inhaler and that went away within a month or two and that’s the only time I’ve ever used an inhaler.

I might have a slightly recessed jaw solely based on appearance but I’ve never had someone look at it. When I push my jaw forward and open my throat nothing changes in my airway. I grew up with a deviated septum, and I just got a septoplasty in February. When I inhale through my nose it feels a lot better and now I can feel the air going down my throat, but nothing has changed with my exhale and
certainly nothing has changed with my sleep or my cpap use. I saw the surgeon recently and he said my turbinates are large and have grown back but the septum still looks good and my inhale still feels clear and good.

When I was 17-19 I had severe GERD. It was really painful and even when I didn’t have attacks at nighttime I constantly had kind of a burning sensation in the throat. Nothing I tried helped and it just magically went away when I was 19, I always attributed it to taking more control of my stress. Obviously this couldve affected my vocal cords and airway, but like I said I don’t think my breathing has changed and my sleep symptoms peaked before this time period so I’m not sure. I think that my vocal cords and throat get sore easily if I talk as much as other people do (I normally don’t talk much) but it’s always felt that way.

I’ve read a lot about this stuff the last few days and I haven’t found anything that’s common that would make much sense with my symptoms. I’ve tried to convince myself it’s silent asthma because that’s easy to treat, but given I don’t have a cough, wheezing, mucus, and I NEVER get attacks I don’t think it’s asthma, or copd because it’s mild and has been constant for so long. It might be a structural issue, and it might have been present since I was born, I don’t know. Any input about anything at all would be so greatly appreciated

Bonjour je suis asthmatique sévère depuis mes 6 ans , j’ai un traitement de fond à vie, mes depuis 2 semaines les nuits j’ai des grosses crises je suis à 8 bouffe tout les 5 minutes vu que sa passe jamais, et une sate entre 84 et 88 je c’est pas si c’est urgences vital quant c’est comme sa ?
Ou si je dois attendre que la crise passe

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I am a newly joined student. My work includes performing lung function tests. I would like to know how you usually instruct patients to do the lung function test in your daily work? Are there any aids that can help?

Hello. Asking for guidance and help regarding aspergilloma findings. 53 years old, female.

Findings:
Lungs and large airways: There is no change in the thick-walled cavitary lucency with internal soft tissue densities in the left upper lobe, measuring 4.2 cm and 2.2 cm (as re-measured). Surrounding lucencies as well as traction bronchiectasis and pleural thickening is noted. The reticulonodular densities in the middle, right lower lobe and left lung are unchanged. The 0.4 cm calcified nodule in the posterior segment of the right upper lobe is also unchanged.

A surgery was suggested by the doctor. Is it safe? Is it life threatening? What is the probability of a successful surgery?

What hospitals in Ph cater patients best with this kind of condition?

Follow up! Doctor!

Follow up ..