Alot of chest congestion and cough

[celine149]

Hello, I am 55 years old and have what my PCP told me was very early copd. I had smoked for alot of years but quit about 2 years ago. I also have alot of allergies and barrett's esophagus so of course I have GERD as well.

Recently (6 weeks) every single morning I am coughing non-stop and it is nasty thick yellow/brown stuff that I am coughing up (alot of it). I have never done this before. The cough is there most of the day right now but seems to be only productive right after waking up. I had thought it was from my allergies but I take zyrtec twice a day every day and nothing seems to be stopping this.  

It isn't from a cold because i have no other symptoms of a cold nor do I think it is a type of flu because I also dont have that bad feelings that we get with flu. Just the dry cough most of the time with it being very productive in AM. Can you give me any ideas what this could be and if I need to be worried about this.

In addition to zyrtec I also take 40mg nexium twice a day, carafate, hyzaar, demadex, toprol xl.

Thank you for any suggestions.  

[National Jewish]

This is not typical of an allergic problem, but is typical of chronic bronchitis.  This may have been aggravated by an infection which is not present now.  I would suggest seeing your physician and getting some further tests, including a chest x-ray to make sure there is no other problem going on.

[celine149]

I forgot to add that I am also having alot of tests right now including a recent bone marrow aspiration for a wcc that is over 19,000.