Thank you for the question -

1)I have only quit about a week ago.... so since then... At times in the past I have coughed a bit up directly after smoking, but since quitting it has become a regular occurrence for the past week or so.

2) I have had blood streaks for about 3 days total, this stopped 4 days ago. It started when I was quite sick with cold/flu like symptoms and a chest cough. I had a really rough cough one night trying hard to force some phlegm out and had some small strands of blood in the mucus. This happened maybe 2 times a day, for 3 days, the rest of the phlegm on those days only contained black specs, after about 3 days of that, there has been 0 blood since. This blood in the mucus stopped 4 days ago, and has not been back since.

3)Persistent is tough to say, I have just been quite sick and am coughing more than I normally do for sure, I am not sure if it is a bit of persisting symptoms from the cold, or part of this whole coughing up small black specks in the phlegm.

4)No fever, I have taken my temp and it was fine, I don't feel especially lethargic, and no trouble breathing besides the bits of phlegm being coughed up. (I am actually just starting training for a 10k run called The Sun Run that I have run every year for the past 5 years).

5)I was taking Doxycyline when a clinic near me first sent me for x-rays they were worried it might be pneumonia, as a result they prescribed it more as a precaution/prevention. I actually did not complete the full cycle of them (I stopped 4 days in) I know this is not recommended with Antibiotics due to immunity build up but it was giving me a bit of nausea / diarrhea so once I found out my X-rays were clear and normal and I didnt have pneumonia I chose to stop it.

I hope this is enough information... I guess the other bits I can provide is I am coughing up this black phlegm currently about once an hour... I will just be sitting at my desk working and notice phlegm in my throat, and then cough it up from there.

I hope this information helps you.



I do have a follow-up question myself. If we do find out that this is a normal behavior for my lungs, my questions would be.

A)How long should I expect this to last about before I should be concerned or follow-up.
B)Is there anything I can do to help the process, whether it's certain drinks or to avoid certain things... Now that I have quit smoking I really just want to get my lungs back to being as healthy as they can as quickly as possible.

**PS I did have my lungs listened to, 2 days ago at a clinic with a stethoscope and was told they sounded clear/fine.