Discharge Instructions for Chronic Bronchitis

You have been diagnosed with chronic bronchitis. With this condition, you cough up mucus for 3 months or more each year for at least 2 years in a row.

Home care

Here is how you can take care of yourself at home: 

• If you smoke, get help to quit. This is the best thing you can do for your bronchitis and overall health.

  • Try a stop-smoking program. There are even telephone and online programs.

  • Ask your healthcare provider about medicines or other methods to help you quit.

  • Ask family members to quit smoking as well.

  • Don’t allow smoking in your home, in your car, or around you.

  • Don't use e-cigarettes.

• Protect yourself from infection.

  • Wash your hands often. Do your best to keep your hands away from your face. Most germs are spread from your hands to your mouth or nose.

  • Ask your healthcare provider about a yearly flu vaccine and pneumonia vaccines.

  • Stay away from crowds. It's especially important to do this in the winter when more people have colds and flu.

  • Take care of your overall health. That means:

    • Getting about 8 hours of sleep every night

    • Exercising for at least 30 minutes on most days

    • Eating lots of fresh fruits and vegetables, as well as whole grains, lean meats and fish, and low-fat dairy products. Not eating fat-filled and sugar-filled foods is also important.

    • Limiting the amount of alcohol you drink.

• Take your medicines exactly as directed. Don’t skip doses.

• Talk with your healthcare provider about ways to keep your mucus thin. Drinking a lot of water helps.

• Talk with your healthcare provider about long-term oxygen therapy.

• Ask your healthcare provider to show you pursed-lip breathing to help decrease shortness of breath.

• During each medical visit, talk with your healthcare provider about your ability to:

  • Cope in your normal environment.

  • Correctly use inhaler techniques (or your medicine delivery systems) to ensure proper inhaler technique are being used

  • Cope with other conditions you may have and the medicines you use to treat them with and how they might impact COPD.

   

• Find out about pulmonary rehab programs in your area. Ask your provider or local hospital. Also talk to your healthcare provider about a self-management program to help control your symptoms.

Follow-up care

Follow up with your healthcare provider, or as advised.

When to call your healthcare provider

Call your provider right away if you have any of the following:

• Coughing

• Increased mucus

• Yellow, green, bloody, or smelly mucus

• Fever

• Chills

• Swollen ankles

Call 911

Call 911 if you have:

• Shortness of breath, wheezing, or trouble breathing that doesn't improve with treatment

• Tightness in your chest that doesn't go away with your normal medicines

• An irregular heartbeat or feeling that your heart is racing

• Trouble talking

• Feeling of lightheadedness or fainting

• Feeling of doom

• Skin turning blue, gray, or purple in color