Coughing up mucus and losing voice professional#

Use antibacterial wipes to clean the telephone/commonly used surfaces if someone you live with has an URTI.

If washing facilities are limited carry antibacterial wipes to use on your hands before eating/drinking.

Wash your hands after travelling and particularly before eating/drinking.

We can’t prevent URTIs unfortunately, but we can do things to reduce our chances of catching them. Lost working days can be disruptive and worrying, particularly if they result in no pay. If the voice is hoarse or unreliable work may be significantly affected or simply impossible.

Coughing up mucus and losing voice professional#

Bronchitis and coughs also tend to last longer and may take up to 6 weeks to recover completely.įor professional voice users, particularly teachers, singers and actors, URTIs can be difficult to manage. Most people feel their voice is more or less better after 5-7 days however, it may take 10-14 days before the vocal folds return to normal. Laryngitis is also usually acute over 2 to 3 days before beginning to recover. Usually people will have more or less recovered from an URTI in a week or so, although the catarrh may drag on for longer. Then the more typical symptoms develop and are at their worst for two to three days before slowly beginning to recover. There is usually a feeling of general malaise. URTIs usually take a day or so to develop (the prodromal period) when the person affected notices sneezing, a tickly nose and/or a more irritable throat. At first the cough may feel tickly and irritable but as the infection develops and the mucus transport blanket is damaged, mucus thickens and the cough becomes productive and sometimes painful. If the chest becomes infected (bronchitis), coughing develops. In extreme cases the voice starts to cut out and may be almost reduced to a whisper. When the larynx is infected (laryngitis), the vocal cords (vocal folds) become swollen and stiff giving the voice a rough, hoarse quality that is deeper in pitch than usual. This will affect hearing, which becomes muffled, and may also cause earache. Swelling may also block the Eustachian tube allowing fluid to collect in the middle ear. If the Eustachian tube is affected the infection can spread to the middle ear causing earache (otitis media). SymptomsĪlthough symptoms are generally experienced mainly in the upper airway, the infection can also affect the lower airway causing irritation and inflammation in the Eustachian tubes, voice box (larynx) and lungs. The damage to the mucous membrane and its cilia takes up to 6 weeks to recover, which is why catarrh and coughs seem to hang on long after the initial infection has cleared up. These dry and thicken as they can no longer be transported away by the normal mucus transport blanket resulting in the all too familiar symptoms of catarrh that blocks our noses or is coughed up from the lungs. Infected mucous membranes are inflamed and swollen and produce increased amounts of mucus and inflammatory fluids. However, URTIs damage the mucous membrane so that the cilia no longer transport the mucus in the usual way.

Normally the mucus is thin and watery and we are unaware of this process.

Dust and other inhaled particles catch in the mucus and are wafted along by small hair-like structures (cilia) upwards from the lungs and larynx and downwards from the nose, Eustachian tube (the tube connecting the ear to the throat) and throat before being swallowed (the mucus transport blanket).

The mucous membranes that line the nose, throat and chest are the airway’s cleaning system.