Please can you help me. I have been bringing up dark sputum for the last 4 months now and worried sick. It is speckled although sometimes larger lumps of dark stuff. I haven't had a cough and have no problems breathing but I can bring up the stuff whenever I try. I have had a chest xray which was clear and had 2 samples taken and both times they said the cell structure is normal and not to worry. If I expectorate it and put it on my finger, I can rub it into my skin and its a noticeable oily tar browny tar like but then disintegrates. The blacker stuff is the same, just a more dense version of that. As I dont cough, I notice it the most right after a meal when the sputum comes up more (dont know why that is). I used to smoke heavily for 15 years but have currently quit and it is worse now than before. (I think nicotine keeps toxins in your lungs, so when you quit it comes up more however:
Apparently it is not tar, this was confirmed by a doctor. You couldnt possibly cough up that much tar.
I've read one person had this and he had been exposed to asbestos, I've never been exposed as far as I know.
I've also read it could be a smoking related version of coal workers' pneumoconiosis , but I also think that is unlikely. Its not clearing and anti biotics have failed to do anything.
Should I just suffer and worry in silence? It seems to me like the doctors are just waiting for there to be a respiratory symptom to develop. What other tests aside from biopsy could a pulmonologist carry out?
Please help.