What are the treatments for bronchiectasis?
Antibiotics are the ‘mainstay’ of treatment. If you have mild bronchiectasis, you are likely to need a course of antibiotics every ‘now and then’ to clear chest infections as and when they occur. A change of the colour of your sputum to green and feeling unwell usually indicates that you have a chest infection. If you have more severe bronchiectasis, chest infections may return quickly once you stop taking antibiotics. In this situation you may be advised to take antibiotics regularly to prevent infections from developing. One option for this is ‘pulsed’ antibiotic treatment which is regular short courses of antibiotics with breaks in treatment between the courses. Another option is to take antibiotics every day indefinitely. Recently, taking regular antibiotics by inhaler (nebuliser) rather than antibiotic tablets has become more popular. This is because it can deliver high doses of the antibiotic directly into the airways with relatively small amounts getting into the body. This redu
