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• Mucus
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  Mucus Production

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Cough and excess mucus or sputum can make you feel miserable and affect your quality of life.10 Treatments that help to reduce the amount or stickiness of the mucus, making it easier to cough it up, are known as mucolytics.

The main aims of mucolytic treatments are to improve your cough, and to make sputum easier to ‘expectorate’ – get mucus out of your lungs. This may help to make it easier to breathe, or mean that you get less breathless on exertion.10

Mucolytic treatment is particularly appropriate for people with COPD, especially if they have a cough and/or produce sputum most days, and if their illness is stable. It is not suitable for people with COPD who do not have troublesome cough or sputum production, or if the mucus is thin and watery.10

If you have COPD, and your doctor thinks you will benefit from mucolytic treatment, you will probably be offered a trial of therapy for 4-6 weeks, to see if it helps you.
If your mucus becomes...

• Easier to cough up
• Or there is less of it, and your cough becomes less bothersome

... and if you are happy to carry on with treatment, your therapy may be continued – either all year round, or at those times of year when you are most troubled by symptoms (usually the winter months).10

Treatment with mucolytics can help to reduce the frequency of flare-ups or exacerbations of COPD.10

For people with lung cancer, a mucolytic treatment can help to reduce the stickiness of the mucus in the lungs, making it easier to cough it up. Cough medicines which stop you coughing (suppressants) should not be used except for people who are too weak to cough up mucus.13