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Productive Cough Case Study

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Robert was seen today as ongoing investigation of his productive cough. Very pleasingly the productive cough completely cleared up prior to today. The only treatment that we implemented was some Nasonex, so the question remains whether or not the productive cough cleared up with the passage of time in the setting of a possible left lower lobe infection, or whether or not post-nasal drip was contributing.

With regards to tests, unfortunately Robert has not got around to having his CT scan of his chest to assess for resolution of the left lower lobe changes in the setting of what was asymptomatic mild bibasal bronchiectasis and he will have this done today.

He has had no productive cough to collect sputum and therefore we have no sputum samples. The blood tests revealed some minor abnormalities. The FBE showed microcytosis which is consistent with his known thalassaemia, but there was also a neutrophilia and lymphocytosis. He had the tests done at Melbourne …show more content…
The clotting factors and other baseline blood tests did not reveal any significant abnormalities, in particular no hypocalcaemia. His serum IgE was mildly elevated and of interest, as was his serum IgG and serum IgA. Again these tests seem to have been done in September 2013 and they were elevated at that time. There was no evidence of sensitisation to
Aspergillus.

Unfortunately in the last day or so after being completely clear of cough for a good week or so, Robert has redeveloped a productive cough which is yellowy-green in colour. He has no sinus symptoms at present and has had no upper respiratory tract infections.

On examination, he was saturating at 99% on room air and his lung fields were clear and I couldn't hear anything in his left

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