Coughing up Phlegm (with kinda of brown chunky stuff)

[317Vapers]

Ok first off sorry probably been beat to death, but I'm noticing something a little different. After like 2-3 weeks of vaping I starting hacking up phlegm with brown stuff in it. Figured it was the tar, which I still think it is cause even when I quit before without vaping I noticed same thing just took a little longer to see it. My question is I have been vaping Almost 45 days now and I'm noticing the brown stuff even more. It went away from about 1 month to 40 days and now its coming back even thicker.

I got to talking to my buddy, who I converted into vaping about the brown gunk. He said you sure its not from the nicotine causing it and you'll still hack stuff up while vaping. I said as far as I'm assuming that the brown stuff is tar and all the other toxins/buildup from analogs not the nicotine itself. Is this correct or will vaping with nic cause brown gunk too, or is it just I'm still ridding my lungs of the build up. Also how longs this normally last till its gone. I would post pics but I'm sure you all seen it before LOL. its quite chunky like.

 

[volume control]

I was hacking stuff up for about 2 months after switching, its still tar from your cig habit. Your lungs could take a year to full heal depending on how much/long you were a smoker.


edit: I meant to mention i experienced it basically the same as you, went away almost, then came back full force for a couple weeks again. At the moment its been about 3 months and i very rarely hack anything up

 

[Mitra2012]

Hmm..
I was smoking 20-25 analogs each day and have been smoking for 17 years.
I've been vaping away like crazy for about 4 months now, (4-6ml a day) and have never been coughing up anything..
It could be tar and other nasty stuff from your smoking, but if it don't stop soon i would go to the doctor for a check.

What juice are you vaping? I don't think it's the juice, but you can never be sure..

 

[317Vapers]

Halo's Malibu, Mentol Ice & Kringles Curse, and Dark City Vapor's Triple V

 

[AttyPops]

How do we know? I know it's easy for me to say... but see a doctor. Particularly if it's dark stuff you're coughing up.

Other thoughts....use clear juices for a while too.

 

[317Vapers]

my phlegm is clear it just has like brown chunks in it not thick either just like bits & pieces in the clear phlegm

 

[Absintheur]

As your lungs heal the become more efficient at clearing themselves, the little cilia in the respiratory track are no longer suppressed by the tar and resume their jobs of moving crap back up to be coughed out. Looking at your screen name are you sure it isn't paint flecks?

 

[317Vapers]

haha good catch but I only do custom paint on the side and actually havnt painted a vehicle in about 2 years since the boy has been born just been too busy with other things around the house then to build custom stuff right now!!

btw the boogers are normally the color of the paint never hacked up colors lol

As your lungs heal the become more efficient at clearing themselves, the little cilia in the respiratory track are no longer suppressed by the tar and resume their jobs of moving crap back up to be coughed out. Looking at your screen name are you sure it isn't paint flecks?

 

[317Vapers]

I'd take a picture of it in a napkin if its not going to gross some out lol

 

[ricklynchcore]

I smoked for 45 years before going totally vape. I almost didn't quit because after 1 month of no tobacco I was dying. I thought I was coughing up my insides. My sputum was every color of the rainbow. At first I thought I was allergic to the vape and maybe I was better off smoking, however some very smart medical people told me to hack my way through it. I did get an upper respiratory infection which required a few antibiotics to quell, but all in all the folks in the above comments are dead right. All the crap I had inhaled took a good two months to clear its way out of my system. Once it settled down, I can tell you I have never looked back. I am sure Vaping has spared me severe future respiratory bouts. Since going to vape two years ago I have not had a cough, cold, flu, or any of the miseries I was prone to get two or three times a year when I smoked. I am simply amazed, and wish I could shout from the rooftops the glories of vaping vs analogs. I cringe when I read some "know it all" suggesting ecigs more dangerous than smoking nonsense. As Bob Dylan wrote, "You don't need a weather vane to know which way the wind blow." I can tell by the way I feel, breath, taste, and smell, the benefits of vape over smoke. Bottom line, I imagine your system is clearing. If you get nervous go the the doctor and let him have a look. My bet, you'll soon feel better, and good luck in not smoking!!!!

 

[Liquid_Drummer]

One week in and I am coughing up the same crap. I quit cold turkey for a year a long time ago. Didnt have vaping back then so it is probably normal. You described the same thing I am seeing. Gross isnt it ? It also smells like old cigs a bit. Been there before and it takes a while to get it all out.

 

[Lowstorm]

I coughed/am coughing up the brownish colored chunks too. Happened when I quit smoking cold-turkey also, so I knew what to expect. Although there seemed to be more of it this time around

 

[Sparkle]

I smoked for 26+ years and was up to 2.5 packs per day. I put them down late September and switched to vaping exclusively. After going cold turkey (no analogues period) for the first time in my life, I was expecting to have a rough time adapting to the different nicotine delivery system and anticipated a few head aches, maybe some nausea. What I did not expect was a full blown flu that would result in a trip to the ER.

Turns out, when you smoke for nearly 30 years and are up to 50 sticks per day for 10 of those years, a lot of very toxic things accumulate in your body. That's not the worst of it though. The worst of it is, the act of smoking can actually mask some really nasty issues that are happening in your body.

For starters, I had a severe upper respiratory infection. The doctor said I probably had it for a very long time but didn't know it because the smoking killed the cillia in my lungs long ago and they were no longer removing the infected material efficiently (barely at all) and the chain smoking just numbed my entire throat and respiratory tract, meaning I never even developed a cough. His exact words were "When smokers die from pneumonia, this is how it happens. They have horrible infections for years which develop into killer pneumonia, literally overnight." As if a fever of 100+ and all the fun that comes with that weren't enough, I was also having other issues, not even linked to my lungs.

My digestive tract also decided to go ape-.... (almost literally.) One of those fun facts that the tobacco industry doesn't want you to know about it what smoking does to your internal flora. The decades of smoking had increased the acid production in my digestive system over time to the point where acid reflux was a part of my normal daily routine but after quitting, the PH balancing act sent my (I apologize for this) lower intestine into a downward spiral that I feared I wouldn't recover from. I couldn't eat for two days but that didn't stop the poo parade. My roommate, who also quit the same day as I, developed some really foul gas. I had the gas too thankfully it lacked the same bouquet as his but it was painful as Hell. This lasted about 4 days.

Now where am I, 70 days later? I still cough up stuff. Two or three times a day I still produce something ugly from my lungs and my doctor says this is great. The acid reflux I have battled for 12 years is gone. No .... folks, it is out of there! I haven't sucked on a Rolaid now for a month and stopped taking the Zantac. A couple times a week I still have morning cough. Sometimes it is to the point of gagging but as time progresses, even this is improving. When I smoked, I would often wake with a cough that would escalate to vomiting quite quickly. This is now a thing of the past.

The moral to my story is this. If quitting smoking can make me this sick, continuing to smoke will definitely kill me. I will never touch another analogue...ever.

Long story short OP. Don't be concerned if you are still coughing stuff up. Here is what my doctor told me. If you are experiencing a regular cough (as in coughing more frequently than every few hours and can't be explained) that persists for more than two weeks or is accompanied by a fever. See a doctor. If you cough frequently and produce nothing and this is accompanied by a fever or shortness of breath in general. See a doctor. If you cough up blood, see a doctor.

Give your lungs some time to "fix" themselves.

 

[DC2]

I smoked for 27 years, but only on average about 7 cigarettes per day, and I coughed up brown gunk every morning.
I think that the little amount I smoked kept my cilia from dying, and I was effectively purging all my brown gunk every day.

When I started vaping, I immediately stopped coughing up brown gunk.
I think that is because I actually didn't have any in my lungs.

Now I cough up some clear junk every morning, which I assume is PG/VG sauce.
I like to think it is my cilia doing their job.

I'd need a pretty convincing argument to convince me otherwise.

 

[bebeau25]

I'm not hungry anymore.

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 2

 

[noi_max]

Saw the title.. had to have a peek. Worth the price of admission.

Sparkle that was quite a harrowing story, but a good read for those not knowing what to expect from quitting tar-bacco. I've had the "quit flu" before when going cold turkey a few years ago. It was pretty bad. Coughing so hard your whole body aches from it. For whatever reason this time around when switching to vaping it hasn't been that bad... but I'm sure there's more to come.

I had the greenish-brown gelatinous phlegm.. which was really gross and tasted like ashtray. My God may I never ever go back to analogs... ever.

 

[Dman9021]

Sparkle, that's incredible. I'm glad your body is healing itself and you're doing well.

I also had the brown boogery phlegm coming up after I switched to vaping. It was persistent in the mornings for a long while but after a few months it stopped completely. A year later there's no brown phlegm, just keep it up and see a doctor if it gets worse/more serious.

 

[DizGrizz]

Spectacular story, Sparkle...and I love a happy ending!

Hey, Admin's - any chance of getting Sparkle's tale added to the "new vapers info"?

 

[Rocketpunk]

I, too, have been coughing up gunk since I started vaping. It looks like brown snot inside clear slime, similar to when I have a cold. I've been assuming this was a good thing. I feel no other detrimental effects. I can take a deep breath into my lungs for once. I assumed it was my lungs cleaning themselves after 15 years of smoking. 15 years > a couple of months vaping. It's gonna take time to clean our lungs out. But I'm happy and looking forward to a future where walking up a couple of flights of stairs no longer makes me winded or my heart pound in my chest like a sledgehammer.

 

[Sparkle]

Spectacular story, Sparkle...and I love a happy ending!

Hey, Admin's - any chance of getting Sparkle's tale added to the "new vapers info"?

This is very kind of you and I thank you, sincerely.

To be completely honest though, that was only half of the story and I was just speaking to another ex-smoker who is in her late 30's and went through a very similar experience to me upon going cigarette-free. We spoke in jest but the sentiment is true, "If you had known," she says to me, "how bad it was going to be?"

She too went through a "flu" like myself and ended up seeing a doctor because of it. My answer was "No." We laughed about it but on the drive home I sorta wondered...

If I had known how hard that first two weeks was going to be would I have done it? Well knowing what I know now, yes, I would, I really really would...but tell that to the poor feverish, flatulent, sweating, coughing, heaving, pile of manflesh (although you wouldn't have guessed that, with all of the crying) who was laying in my living room floor on day four begging, "please somebody in this house make some chicken soup, or kill me."

Perhaps stories like these should remain hidden. No sense in scaring the locals.

Seriously though my story is rare, most people simply do not smoke as much or as long as I did without at least quitting at some point. I never quit before that fateful week. Never tried, and as I pointed out in my previous post, I was up to 50 cigarettes a day. Think about that for a second. That is literal chain smoking. The minute I put one out, I lit another. That takes a serious commitment that fortunately, most people don't have to stoop to before they realize how utterly stupid they are. I'm a little thick so it took me a little longer to figure it out.

Most people won't experience what I did. Most people aren't dumb enough to destroy their bodies to the point that I did. The ones that are as far gone as I might need a warning though. Batten down the hatches and hold on, you're in for a Hell of a ride for the first few days. It might really suck but it's the best ride you'll ever not get back on again!