Have you ever wondered why you cough? When you take a deep breath there are times when your throat will involuntarily shut itself off from air intake. That brief hesitation causes the muscles in your chest and lung to constrict. The resulting action is to cough.
Your body performs this service because it is convinced there is a reason for you to cough. This could be due to an illness such as a cold or flu or it could be the sign of foreign matter in your lungs, trachea or bronchial tubes.
Your body was designed to keep your air passages as clear as possible. Coughing is a direct response to that inner directive.
If you should find yourself in the hospital you will often be given a small handheld devise you will be asked to breathe into. These devices were created to induce coughing. Your health care professional realizes that when you stay in bed long enough phlegm can build up in your body, but isn't eliminated because you are not in a position to exert any pressure on yourself so you don't use your lungs efficiently. That's why they work to force you to cough.
For those who smoke it can be easy to cough. In fact morning coughing is not only typical it is often routine. The term generally used for this scenario is "smoker's cough". An individual who has spent much of their life smoking may find they are prone to extended sessions of coughing in the morning. Generally phlegm expulsion is normal and may seem more abundant than it should.
Remember your body is designed to react to foreign matter in the lungs. Your body views the smoke and subsequent tar introduced to the lungs as foreign matter. Your body can produce additional phlegm to coat and protect, but eventually that has to be removed and your body's cough mechanism will work overtime to remove it.
In normal circumstances the phlegm will bring up foreign matter for elimination. Smoker's cough only seems to result in the production and elimination of phlegm without the elimination of tar and nicotine residue.
Sometimes when a long-term smoker laughs you can hear a rattling sound that indicates a significant buildup of phlegm.
One of the reasons it becomes harder for smokers to eliminate mucus has to do with a strange phenomenon that incapacitates a part of the coughing process. Inside your trachea there are small hair like protrusions called cilia. When responding to phlegm normally the cilia will move the phlegm upward where it can be eliminated. Smoking causes the cilia to either be paralized or, in a worse case scenario, destroyed. When the cilia can no longer function correctly the only recourse smokers have is to engage in regular and sometimes harsh bouts of coughing to eliminate what the normal body does easily.
Recent research seems to indicate that "smoker's cough" can often lead to chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Researchers now believe that the trouble smokers might experience with smoker's cough is a strong indicator of COPD.
The study published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine indicates, "The presence of chronic cough and phlegm is not an innocent symptom but is an early marker of airflow obstruction."
It appears that smokers cough [http://www.tips-on-stopping-smoking.com/smokers-cough.html] is not a passing symptom, but an indicator of a potentially greater threat to the health of the smoker.
In response to this study, Jorgen Vestbo, of Hvidovre University Hospital in Denmark and the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom, said "[The] lifetime risk of COPD in smokers is... probably about 35 to 50 percent." (Source: WashingtonPost.com)
Smokers often respond to their coughing fits by self-medicating with cough suppressants. Many in the medical community strongly discourage suppressing a smoker's cough. For the smoker this action remains the only reasonable mechanism for the removal of phlegm. To suppress the cough only contributes to declining health.
Should you quit smoking the cilia inside your trachea can regenerate. You should know that while they regrow and resume their role in your health care management you will likely continue to experience smoker's cough. Once the cilia are fully functional the coughing symptoms should decline.
Paul is a founder member of the site [http://www.tips-on-stopping-smoking.com/] dedicated to assisting smokers that find it just that little bit too hard.
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