Health Articles 101

Bloody phlegm is a very dangerous symptom that should be evaluated by your doctor as soon as possible to start you on a treatment program and prevent serious health complications.

In many cases the color of phlegm combined with persistent cough symptoms provide your health practitioner with important clues necessary to pin point the culprit of your bloody phlegm.

Excessive mucus secreted from your lungs, bronchi and sinuses is body’s protective mechanism necessary to envelope harmful bacteria and irritants to later expel them from the body and make you feel better.

Abundant bloody phlegm can be a sign of a serious lung infection, tumor, or a grave medical condition. Bloody phlegm color range can go from bright red blood to a few bloody streaks present in throat mucus.

Listed below are five diseases that might cause you to cough up bloody phlegm.

1. Tuberculoses is the number one culprit for making you cough up bloody phlegm. It’s a highly contagious lung disease triggered by a strain of mycobacterium that literally starts digesting healthy lung tissues. Tuberculoses can affect persons with compromised immune systems after a serious illness, children and elderly patients. Tuberculoses is especially wide spread in tightly populated communities like prisons or shelters.

2. Pseudomonas pneumonia could eventually lead to bloody phlegm symptoms. This lung infection almost always affects critically ill patients in need of artificial breathing ventilators, humidifiers and other hospital equipment.

3. Lung cancer causes healthy lung cells to be taken over by sickly cancer tissues causing complete loss of lung function, persistent cough and bloody phlegm. Lung cancer could be fatal if not detected at early stages

4. Pulmonary embolism is a life-threatening condition caused by a blood clot blocking a major artery or a blood vessel in the lungs. Blood clot formation is a result from post surgery complications, long periods of airplane or car rides and other predisposing conditions. Bloody phlegm can be one of many pulmonary embolism symptoms.

5. Sarcoidosis is an autoimmune disorder that makes body’s immune cells to attack the body itself and not foreign invaders it would normally try to neutralize. Immune system cells cluster together to form granulomas that leads to a complete organ failure over time. If sarcoidosis affects the lung tissues, it might cause significant bloody phlegm and lung dysfunction.

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