If a heavy smoker coughs up phleme during the day is this a sign of lung cancer?!


Question: If a heavy smoker coughs up phleme during the day is this a sign of lung cancer?
Answers:

That is the beginnings of COPD, which will lead to the person using an oxygen tank when older, and then to death from stroke or heart attack from lack of oxgen.

Canuk, you working in the medical field, should know the smoke doesn't paralyze the "hairs." The heat from the cigarette burns the cilia away, allowing the tar to be embedded in the bronchi and also making the air sacs brittle and unable to oxygenate the body.

It happened to my dad at the age of 60.



If the mucus that is being coughed up has blood in it the person should be seen and have a chest x-ray. The chemicals that are in the smoke paralyzes the little hairs in the air passages that move mucus up. When the smoking is stopped for a period of time like overnight the hairs start to move again. This is why in the morning the coughing is worse and there is a lot of mucus produced by coughing. One the person starts to smoke again the hairs become paralyzed and the coughing ceases.

18 yrs of ICU,ER and Operating Room nursing



Not likely. I smoke & cough phelgm up in the morning. Its juust because smoking causes something to become weakened & causes us smokers to get sick more. I forgot what its called. Basically its smokers cough!




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