Rattling cough - causes, treatment and home remedies

Rattling cough often originates in the bronchi. If the lungs are filled with secretions and mucus, the air that flows past them causes a rattling noise. We clearly hear this when the bronchi are clogged - doctors speak of coarse bubble rattle noise by bronchitis. The alveoli are finer, and here the doctor hears the rattling first with the stethoscope.

contents

• Rattling noises when coughing from bronchitis
• What can you do against bronchitis?
• prevention
• Cause pulmonary edema
• Non-cardiac pulmonary edema
• The high altitude edema
• First aid in high altitude edema
• The pneumonia
• phthisis
• lung cancer
• Non-specific symptoms in lung tumor
• Main danger: smoking
• Is lung cancer curable?
• False guesses
• Prevention of lung cancer
• Treatment with rattling cough
• What should you pay attention to?

Rattling noises when coughing from bronchitis

The most common cause of rattling cough is acute bronchitis. Such inflammation of the bronchi is usually caused by bacteria or viruses, and the symptoms are similar to flu with fever, cough, sore throat, runny nose, headache and body aches. Even childhood diseases such as measles or chickenpox can be associated with bronchitis. Other triggers are dusts, chemicals or vapors and, last but not least, cigarette smoke.

Often an acute inflammation of the bronchi is responsible for rattling cough. (Image: Africa Studio / fotolia.com)

Inflamed here are the lower respiratory tract. The cough does not just rattle; it is a painful dry cough. The rattling breath is a leading symptom, accompanied by ejection in white, yellow or green color. Acute bronchitis lasts for at least two weeks, with continuous use of cold, tobacco smoke or irritant dust, it can last up to eight weeks. Without external triggers such as chemicals is a typical disease of the cold season.

Infants are particularly affected. Every fifth child up to the age of three suffers at least once from spastic bronchitis, which narrows the airways, and is difficult to distinguish from asthma. If the breathing and rattling coughs in toddlers persist for more than six weeks, it indicates asthma.

Acute bronchitis has a spontaneous course and goes by itself within a few weeks. A doctor should be consulted in order to alleviate the acute symptoms. If bacteria are the cause, antibiotics are appropriate, with viruses a treatment of the complaints is sufficient.

What can you do against bronchitis?

If you cure inflammation of the bronchi, be careful not to smoke in your home. Give your body the necessary rest: it needs its energy to fight the disease.

• Drink plenty of water, juice spritzers, fruit and herbal teas.
• Take expectorant medication.
• Do not irritate your respiratory system with cold air or physical exertion.
• Inhale with salt water, 2 tablespoons salt to 1 liter of water.

prevention

• Go for a walk regularly and eat rich in vitamins.
• Make sure that the humidity is not below 50%.
• Strengthen your immune system (strengthen the immune system).

Cause pulmonary edema

Another cause of rattling cough is pulmonary edema, a typical consequence of left ventricular weakness. Here, the blood jams back into the lungs. The fluid presses on the alveoli, causing shortness of breath and rattling. The skin becomes moist, cool and pale.

Typical of pulmonary edema are wet Rattling noises that sound like a simmer of fluid. Those affected can no longer absorb enough oxygen into the bloodstream. They breathe hard, feel suffocated, and are restless. Add to that foamy ejection.

Acute pulmonary edema can lead to death in a heart failure within minutes. Accordingly, the emergency physician must be alerted immediately. (Image: pattilabelle / fotolia.com)

An acute pulmonary edema in heart failure is a medical emergency. Without treatment, it can lead to respiratory arrest and in a few minutes to the death of those affected. Call the emergency doctor immediately if you notice someone's symptoms. The doctor gives heart-heavy and water-expelling medications, oxygen and initiates artificial respiration in severe cases. Before the ambulance arrives, it is helpful to keep your upper body high and your legs low.

In a fine bubble rattles can also be a lung infection be the cause. It is usually the result of a flu infection. Often it follows a bronchitis, now the coarse bubble sounds of bronchitis are fine-bubble pneumonia. This is either due to a secondary infection or because the pathogens migrate from the bronchi into the lungs.

Non-cardiac pulmonary edema

This acute lung failure is not due to heart failure, but to either inflammation or intoxication. Causes include blood poisoning (sepsis), polytrauma, aspiration (inhalation) of gastric contents, inhalation of irritating gases or severe burns. Often other organs fail. Even if the treatment starts quickly, every second person dies.

The high altitude edema

This edema occurs in altitude sickness as a result of high pressure on the pulmonary artery. It usually appears one to three days after a climb over 2,700 meters altitude. Symptoms include shortness of breath, rattling cough with frothy-bloody sputum, weakness and ultimately coma. The victims must be brought immediately to lower levels.

First aid in high altitude edema

Call the emergency services immediately over 112 (or the corresponding number outside Europe).

• Keep the upper body of the patient upright.
• Squeeze the bloodstream in the extremities. If you have a heart failure, you temporarily release the heart and reduce the back pressure in the lungs.
• Open tight clothing to give the sick air.
• Make sure that the patient sits down and refrains from any physical exertion. He should support himself with his hands and thus relieve the respiratory aid muscles.
• Calm the patient and persuade him to calm his breathing.

Height elevation edema is a build-up of fluid in the lungs that can occur in mountaineers after a quick ascent to high altitudes. (Image: zappblinki / fotolia.com)

The pneumonia

A typical pneumonia runs with rattling cough, sputum, Atemno and usually fever and chills. It can be recognized in the x-ray on the chest.

An atypical pneumonia is also clearly evident in the radiograph, but the doctor often hears no rattling noises when listening and it runs without fever, flu symptoms and coughing.

Pneumonia is caused by viruses or bacteria such as pneumococci, Chlamydia pneumoniae, mycoplasma or, rarely, legionella. Legionella are bacteria that multiply in stagnant water and that we breathe in with the drops of water. In contrast to popular belief, the bacteria do not obviously need unhygienic conditions for this: They also live in dirty urinals as well as in air conditioning systems, whirlpools and swimming pools.

Pneumococci, also bacteria, are transmitted via droplets, usually by coughing or sneezing. Affected are especially people whose immune system weakened by illness and age or, as in small children, is not sufficiently developed. There is a vaccine against pneumococci which is recommended for old, pulmonary or immunocompromised patients.

The bacteria Chlamydophila pneumoniae and Chlamydophila psittaci (psittacosis, ornithosis) can cause bronchitis, inflammation of the lungs and pharynx. And even with flu, viruses can lead to pneumonia. Here the fever rises to 40 degrees for weeks.

phthisis

This disease has historically been known as consumption. Characteristic are rattling cough, bloody sputum and night sweats. Tuberculosis (TBC) is caused by bacteria of the complex "Myctobacterium tuberculosis". If the tuberculosis is connected to the bronchial system, it is an open tuberculosis, in which pathogens are released into the environment as coughing or sneezing droplets. Starving, weakened people and people who live in damp, cold apartments are prone to infection.

lung cancer

In the worst case, the rattling cough is due to a lung tumor. Lung cancer has little early symptoms. If irritating coughing breaks out and fever that sweats the pores of the patient at night, and he spits out bloody secretions on coughing, he is already in an advanced phase.

Non-specific symptoms in lung tumor

Early symptoms are nonspecific and are similar to those of bronchitis and other harmless respiratory diseases. In addition, there are chest pains, acute respiratory distress and reduced performance. The sick lose weight and become weaker and weaker.

In the X-ray, the tumor is often not recognizable even now. Rather, a "Lungenrundherd" could also indicate tuberculosis.

Smokers are 15 times more likely to be lung cancer than non-smokers. (Image: Robert Kneschke / fotolia.com)

Main danger: smoking

As unclear as the early symptoms are, it is clear that the main cause of lung cancer is smoking. Cigarette smokers are fifteen times as likely to get lung cancer as nonsmokers, and similarly dramatic is laryngeal cancer, tracheal cancer, oral cancer, lip cancer or tongue cancer. Even passive smoking increases the risk of lung cancer by three times.

It's not nicotine that causes lung cancer, but more than forty other substances among the 4000 chemical compounds in tobacco. Other triggers that are not related to tobacco smoke include: radon, diesel exhaust, hydrocarbons, mineral fibers, dioxin, cadmium, arsenic or chromium. Lung cancer belongs to smoking as well as to industrial society.

So if you smoke, where industrial work comes into contact with harmful substances and lives in a region with heavy air pollution, you have a high risk of contracting. In the megacities of the Third World, smog is a major cause.

The extreme risk exists generally for industrial regions of Russia, China, for cities such as Jakarta, Tehran, Istanbul, Mexico City or Delhi. Especially dangerous is radon radiation, which emanates from the radioactive substance in the soil, which can rise, for example, over the basement into the house. In Germany, this is the cause of about seven percent of the diseases.

When smoking applies: The greater the amount of life of the smoked cigarettes, the greater the risk. Nothing can change this equation, and there are no tricks like "Superfood" or special sports that could change that. Cigarette smokers are more likely to become ill than cigar and pipe smokers because they "smoke on their lungs". But for cigars and pipes, the risk of oral cancer is higher.

Although cigar and pipe smokers are less likely to develop lung cancer than cigarette smokers, they are still seven times as likely as non-smokers. The more and the longer someone smokes, the greater the risk. The main group of those affected are smokers between 60 and 70 years. Conversely, if you stop smoking, you already have a 60% reduced risk of developing lung cancer five years later, and only ten percent later, 15 years later. However, he never returns to the risk level of a lifelong non-smoker.

Is lung cancer curable?

Lung cancer is a so-called killer cancer. The chances of healing him are very small. This is also because he is rarely recognized early. Although the chances of recovery are poor even in a previously diagnosed lung tumor, but still much better than a late-detected. A very small tumor that has not metastasized can easily be removed.

Almost 70% of those who undergo surgery at this stage are cured. Therefore, a precautionary examination without specific suspicion is strongly advised, especially if you smoke or have long smoked and are over 40 years old.

False guesses

A lung cancer is particularly tricky, because the first signs for laymen hardly indicate cancer. Some cancers change the hormone balance in the early stages. With more glucocorticoids, the sufferer greases up on the face and body.

Consequently, he then suspects a wrong diet, lack of exercise or even a problem with the thyroid gland. While he is on a low calorie diet or jogging through the park as a therapy, the cancer continues to proliferate.

Or the cancer promotes the formation of the hormone vasopressin. Sodium deficiency causes cerebral edema, dizziness and disorientation. Countless diseases are the cause, but hardly anyone thinks about lung cancer.

Or the bones become inflamed and swell. Instead of cancer, we think of rheumatism.

Giving up smoking is the most important step in protecting yourself from dangerous lung diseases. (Image: Kenishirotie / fotolia.com)

Prevention of lung cancer

Preventing lung cancer is much easier than treating it. Stop smoking. The combination of smoking and alcohol is extremely harmful because alcohol dissolves the carcinogen present in the tobacco.

Treatment with rattling cough

Rattling cough is not a disease, but a symptom, and a therapy affects the underlying disease. In bacteria, antibiotics help, in viruses, the symptoms are primarily treated. For severe conditions such as TBC, a combination of different antibiotics must be taken for several months.

In a lung carcinoma, the rattling cough is the smallest problem. If anything, surgery, laser and chemo help.

Pulmonary edema secondary to cardiac insufficiency is not an acute infection but accompanies major previous illnesses, be it chronic high blood pressure, heart disease or recurrent myocardial infarction.

In case of infections of the bronchi and other non-serious diseases, home remedies for bronchitis among others help. Teas from thyme, ribwort, ginger, spruce and mullein work to reduce mucus. Even baths with camphor and eucalyptus are a proven home remedy for coughing. Generally, you should drink a lot like a cold. This stimulates the mucous membranes, which can better remove the mucus.

Ribwort plantain tea has a soothing effect and dissolves the mucus. (Image: Hetizia / fotolia.com)

What should you pay attention to?

Rattling cough in a flu infection should be over after three weeks at the latest. A few days may still be followed by a no-noise cough, but if the rattling continues, especially with other symptoms, you should definitely see a doctor.

A secondary infection is frequent and can lead to chronic lung disease. Is the rattling cough with bloody Connected with the ejection, then please go immediately to the doctor. (Dr. Utz Anhalt)
Specialist supervision: Barbara Schindewolf-Lensch (doctor)

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