Phlegm

Bottle_of_Smoke

So, you have a chest infection or whatever, you're stuck in the middle of an office so when you heave up some phlegm you can't exactly spit it across the room.

When you swallow it what happens? does your stomach just destroy it or is there any benefit to going to the bathroom and spitting it out?

Jay P

Doesn't it get stuck in your throat again? Or some of it does. That's what I've always been told anyway.

PhysiologyRocks

Slightly off topic, but it is SO scummy when people hack up phlegm and spit it on the street!!!

Last week I was on a beach. Stood on it in my bare feet.

cuckoo

I've never thought about this before, but now i'm really curious...

*awaits med type person's answer with interest*

Tree

I think swallowing it is far from unadvisable. You dont risk aersolising the wonderous things in it for a start. Your stomach is a very inhospitable place for all but the most foolhardy of bugs, so swallowing it just means you might recover some of them amino acids you expended making the phlegm and the IgA in it.

So swallow away, and if you must hack it up, do it so you wont spread buggys all over the gaff

DrIndy

just swallow it - most phlegm gets swallowed anyway unless you cough very hard and your body will digest it very avidly and recycle it into more phlegm ;-)

Tree

Though if it's tb, swallowing it is as bad an idea as hacking it up.....

Don't get TB boys and girls, it's bad for you and everyone else