Green Phlegm

[asmakis]

I had posted earlier in the week about my dad's SOB while on Tarceva. But last night he mentioned that he has been coughing up green phelgm. Could this be a sign of infection because it's green?

[Liz13]

I believe it is. That's how I could tell if my kids had an infection as litle ones. Green and yellow. Real pretty.

[Chanwit]

With Lung cancer you might see many colors coughed up. When my wife had her productive cronic cough she coughed up green, yellow, red, and brown. Somtimes we would ask for antibiotics just in case there was pneumonia and that sometimes quietened the cough. One time she was coughing red tinted sputum non stop that I got her admitted to hospital where they used antibiotics and steroids to stop the cough. The doctor said the brown stuff was Old Blood. I summarized all this to mean that the cancer was dissolving and expelling it's blood supply. The doctor said that's probably what was happening. The Tarceva dried up the lung cancer and left a cavity in the lung.

Maybe you should ask your doctor for some antibiotics to see if that will solve the problem.

Chanwit.

[Snowflake]

Amanda,

Dad's doctor should know how much Dad is coughing, the "depth" of the cough and the many colors (and consistency) of the nasty crap he is bringing up. Green is NOT a good color, and any blood, old or fresh, should be brought to the doctor's attention.

[Calintay]

Green can definately mean infection but also it can mean that he is getting "over it" but in this case I would make sure they rule out infection.