Do you have Cystic Fibrosis and what do you use to expel mucus from lungs?

Do you have Cystic Fibrosis and what do you use to expel mucus from lungs?

I have nephew 2 years old nephew just recently diagnosed with CF. doctor will not prescribe Pulmozyme saying that he is too young. What other choices we have besides chest therapies. We are using the VEST but the mucus is not being expelled.

That vest is garbage in my opinion. Perform CPT (chest physiotherapy) on your own. Do a web search for chest physiotherapy and start to practice. Ask his doc to order CPT and have it taught to the family. Basically, you cup your hands, position him in various drainage postitions, and pat above the area that has secretions. Positioning for drainage is key. The machines sure save time, but real CPT done with the human hand can not be beat. If the doc won't order CPT call the local hospital and ask if someone from the Respiratory department can assist you in learning CPT.

He probably is too young for Pulmozyme, but not bronchodilators and steroids. I hope he is taking some of those just to make thing easier for him. CF is tough, but every year they seem to live just a bit longer. Aggressively stay with the CPT as it really does help.

CPT is huge for CF patients when clearing secretions from the lungs. You could ask about mucomyst, but he is probably too little for that as well. Expectorants (cough syrups) can assist with his cough and other devices, such as Ultrasonic Nebulizers, can deliver a hypotonic aerosol to his airways that can break up dried secretions and make them easier to expel from the body. CPT + meds + aeorsol therapy (ultrasonic nebulizer is best in my opinion) + dedication will really help out at his age. Good luck.

It is better to go on Medline plus and find the answer there, you will get real authentic answers there.

my ex-husband used mucomist since he was a baby, and the manual chest therapy with the cupping of the hands and such, it also helps that when you do this therapy they are leaning forward, he usually leaned over the arm of the couch. this sometimes made him retch but that was also full of mucus. we did the manual therapy about once a week since it was pretty hard on him but it is of course suggested that you do it daily, but that is entirely unrealistic since it buised is ribcage quite often so badly that he couldn't handly doing it daily.