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There is no cure for bronchiectasis because the damage to the airways can’t be reversed, but its symptoms and lung infections can be treated. The goal is to treat the underlying conditions and lung infections, to remove mucus from the lungs, and to prevent further complications.
Some of the medicines or treatments usually prescribed for bronchiectasis are antibiotics, bronchodilators, expectorants, and mucus-thinning drugs. In most cases, treatment involves a combination of medication and the use of devices and exercises to help clear the airways.
Long-term antibiotics are used in people with bronchiectasis to improve disease symptoms, decrease exacerbation rates, and improve quality of life. These include amoxicillin, flucloxacillin and trimethoprim.
The choice of the adequate antibiotic will depend on the specific bacteria that is causing the infection.
Bronchodilators relax the muscles around the airways. The majority of the bronchodilators are inhaled medications, taken using an inhaler or a nebulizer. They help to open the airways so breathing is easier.
The bronchodilators commonly used for bronchiectasis include short-acting bronchodilators, such as albuterol and levalbuterol, and long-acting bronchodilators, such as formoterol, tiotropium and salmeterol.
Short-acting bronchodilators are used as a rescue medication when there is a need for quick relief of shortness of breath, and long-acting bronchodilators are used regularly to control bronchiectasis symptoms.
Expectorants and mucus thinning medicines help to clear mucus. Both work to loosen the mucus in the lungs, making it easier to cough out of the airways. Expectorants or mucus clearance agents, include hypertonic saline and inhaled mannitol, that keeps the airways hydrated and enhance clearance and mucolytics, such as bromhexine, N-acetyl cysteine, erdosteine and fudosteine, and dornase alfa.
Expectorants may be combined with decongestants.
Other bronchiectasis treatments include hydration, which turns the mucus thinner and easier to cough up; chest physical therapy (chest clapping or percussion) done by a therapist or trained family member, using their hands or an external device, to loosen mucus and help move it out of the lungs, or with an external device, like therapy vest that uses high-frequency air waves; oxygen therapy to raise low blood-oxygen levels; and corticosteroids to treat airway inflammation.
Surgery may be considered if other treatments do not help and only one part of the airway is affected, if symptoms aren’t responding to other treatment or if major bleeding takes place.
I did chest percussion to myself when I got so sick in Jan 2014, I hung myself off the bed, head on a pillow on the floor, and cupped my chest, I was trying to mimic what would happen if I was able to cough. I could not get enough air in to cough. I did all of the things you listed above, I was on two antibiotics, used two inhalers, a nebulizer, a warm steam vaporizer, and I took mucinex to help thin the secretions, I do not know if I ever drank that much liquid in my life. I really should have been hospitalized but I was very familiar with what they would do and as long as I was not vomiting and could remain hydrated, I figured being at home was best. I was terrified that they would intubate me if I went to the hospital. Healthy lungs are exquisitely beautiful organs...diseased ones are NOT. Depending upon the degree of disease, they can look like crumpled up and burned bags, they can also be so hardened that it is impossible to even ventilate them. The more you know...