During your initial bouts of chronic bronchitis, your symptoms are the same as those that a person with acute bronchitis will face.  There is a heavy discharge of mucus from your coughing and the cough itself is a tell tale sign of chronic bronchitis. 

 

One thing that your doctor’s will determine is if there is something else wrong that could possibly be causing your bronchitis in the first place.  Some will have additional conditions like asthma that can lead to this problem.  But, when there are no underlying causes, bronchitis can be labeled as the cause of your illness and then treated as such.

 

When you have a bronchitis bout, your bronchial tubes become inflamed and swollen.  Each time that this happens, the lining of those tubes becomes scarred.  Over time, the more irritation that happens the more excessive mucus production will become.  Your tubes lining will become thickened because of the scarring.

 

As this happens, your cough becomes more and more troublesome.  The excessive mucus and the scaring lead to problems with air flow.  You can’t breathe as easily as you did.  Still, the progression worsens so that your lungs become scarred themselves. 

 

At this point, there is also the addition of bacteria in your lungs and tubes.  The location becomes perfect for the breeding of bacteria which eventually cuts off all flow of air to your lungs, causing death.

 

As horrible as that sounds, many people will die each year from the effects of chronic bronchitis.

 

It Doesn’t Happen Fast

 

A key point that you need to take from this e-book is the fact that chronic bronchitis does not happen overnight.  It doesn’t come on one day out of no way and cause you to die.  It is a condition that happens and worsens over time.  It is also a condition that can be treated, slowed and in some cases reversed, meaning you can get through it!

 

As you will see in the next chapter, you can get to the point of preventing and improving your life circumstances even if you have bronchitis.

 

Many patients do not get to the doctor until their bronchitis is in a severe state.  When this happens, their condition is worsened.  But, why don’t people just get to the doctor?  The answer to that lies in the fact that many mistakenly believe that bronchitis is not a dangerous, life threatening condition that it is.