So I have a cold. I’m coughing up copious quantities of lung butter, blowing similar quantities of snot out my nose.
I have three questions:
Are lung butter and snot made of the same stuff? One comes from my lungs and one from my nose - they look the same, but are they really made of the same stuff?
Why are they multi-coloured? I started with clear snot/lung butter, then it turned a pretty lemony yellow, before progressing to a lovely dark greeny colour? Why does it do this? What makes the pretty colours?
Why do people get colds in the first place?
Note I’m not looking for medical advice - I know I have a cold, I’m not going to die (yet). I’ve been to the doctor, and it’s all under control. But I am wondering about the nature of my cold.
I always thought “lung butter” was snot that dripped from the nose… they are connected, you know. (Since this is a gross topic already, I’ll explain how I found this out in preschool. We were eating spaghetti, and some went Up the wrong way. Out my nose.)
I think the color comes from what is trapped inside the snot. When nothing’s trapped, it’s clear. When dried nose-snot is trapped, it’s green. When germs are trapped, it’s yellow.
I asked almost the same question, except I wanted to know the caloric & nutritional values as well. This was after reading all about the nutritional qualities of sperm in a previous article.
I recently had a major icky illness & produced what I would swear was my own body weight per day in phlegm & mucus & was wondering, given that a lot of that gets swallowed, is that supplementing my diet?
(This may or may not apply, but hey, this is just a message board and you aren’t really looking for medical advice.)
This past winter I suffered a series of colds one after another-just viruses, but enough to keep me pretty miserable for 6 weeks or so.
I recently visited my doctor because, months later, I have a near-constant cough, complete with whistling and squeaking in my chest and nasty hacking noises. Also, my occasional exercise-induced asthma has become much more frequent and bothersome.
She diagnosed me with “chronic post-nasal drip.” Apparantly, it can continue for months following a virus. We are treating it with nasal spray (I can’t take Sudaphed) and I’m using an inhaler before I run.
So, yeah, the stuff you are coughing up is almost assuredly originating in your nose. It drips down the back of your throat, and then you get to bring it back up again. What fun, yes?
But you see, the stuff I’m coughing up is in my lungs, not my throat. I can feel it bubbling around in there when I breathe. I could understand if it had run down my throat (presumably to my stomach) and I was coughing up the stuff that got stuck to the back of my throat on the way down, but what about the stuff in my lungs?
Oh, and levdrakon asks a good question too. What is the nutritional value of this stuff?
Lung butter is the term I’ve always used for the stuff you cough up when you have a cold. I suppose because it’s yellow and gooey. Don’t really know. (Which raises the whole question of what makes it gooey)
He’s a poster here, but my reference to him is an inside joke–sorry. You might want to take at look at the link, though–it may put you on track for an answer to your question.
bilirubin = Billy Rubin. I’m told it’s a common medical school joke, along with leaving amputated limbs in the beds of freshmen.
I get dark yellow with nice little light brown chunks in it during spring allergies. Sometimes I get red laced ones too! Probably because I smoke. Very pretty things.
Umm, if the stuff you’re coughing up has red in it, that’s blood. That’s not good at all.
I have no idea what makes phlegm turn green, but I do know that the yellowish color, when you have an infection, is probably due to white blood cells and bacteria. And possibly some epithelial cells being sloughed off. This is my guess as a medical technology student, hehe:cool:
Sputum, from the lungs, is moderately different in composition from mucus, which generally comes from the nasal passages, sinuses, and throat. Most of what a person coughs up “from the lungs” during your average cold is not really sputum, but mucus which has drained down the throat from above. Color change of mucus is indicative of inflammatory reaction, but may be associated with allergies, molds, viruses, bacteria, or other irritants. Color change in mucus is not necessarily an indicator of a need for antibiotics.
Actual sputum, brought up from the bronchial tree, tends to be thicker and more tenacious than mucus. When sputum changes color suddenly (as it can often in people with emphysema or other chronic lung diseases) it can be a good indication that infection is starting. This change, associated with shortness of breath, painful breathing, and fever, are all signs that one should speed to one’s doctor.
Seems to me we had a lengthy thread some time ago about why snot is green, and what conditions and changes might indicate the need for antibiotics. Do a search if you’re interested. I’m not gonna touch that one with a ten foot pole again, after having a sustained discussion with a non-medical poster who believed in recommending antibiotics.
