Your Blanket

1. Smoking.  Primary or Secondary.  Smoking paralyzes the cilia and causes increased mucus production. Increased slime with no place to go just stacks up here and there.  This results in hoarseness when it accumulates on the vocal cords and a productive cough when it stacks up anywhere in the respiratory tree.  Remedy:  Don’t smoke and avoid second hand smoke if possible. (Did you ever wonder why our government, in all its wisdom, gives financial assistance to the tobacco industry while prosecuting it for marketing a harmful substance?  I would guess that more people die of smoking than will ever die of terrorist bombs. Our exportation of tobacco is truly a weapon of mass destruction.)

2.  Infection. Acute bacterial or viral infections cause a shedding of ciliated cells and secrete substances that impair the motility of the cilia that remain. Remedy: Avoid them, live in a bubble. Obviously we can’t do that and go to singouts.  Did you know that most respiratory infections are spread not by inhalation of infected aerosols but via contact with your own hands?  Washing your hands is a simple but effective way to help reduce the spread of upper respiratory infections.

3.  Adequate hydration.  Singing or any activity that necessitates heavy breathing (use your imagination here) tends to dry out the mucus.  Dried mucus doesn’t clear easily.  Try blowing your nose if your humidifier isn’t working correctly.  It would seem that the best time to drink fluid and hydrate your mucus membranes is before singing. However, do not drink so much that you have to run off the stage or otherwise embarrass your self during a performance.  The water that you sip during a rehearsal has to pass through your stomach before it gets to its primary site of absorption in the small bowel.  If you have eaten before you came, the additional water may sit in the stomach for awhile as it mixes with the food that you are beginning to digest. After it gets to the small bowel it has to be circulated and secreted into the mucociliary blanket.  The mucus that is already there and interfering with your singing will still have to be cleared out before the better hydrated stuff can replace it. So wetting your whistle is probably just that, wetting your whistle (your lips), and not your larynx. It will help keep your tongue from sticking to the roof of your mouth but it won’t do much for the mucus rattling in your windpipe.  It certainly doesn’t hurt anything. My personal experience with drinking while I am singing is that it just makes me belch. Sipping and not gulping would probably avoid this as less air is swallowed.

4.  Drying medications. Some medications are necessary on a continual basis and can not be stopped.  Others can be taken at times when they are less likely to change the character of the mucus while you are singing.  Still other medications have the opposite effect on mucus  and thin it out.  These are called expectorants.  A common one is guaifenesin as found in Robitussin Rx and others.  These are over the counter medications and can be used temporarily with adequate hydration to decrease the viscosity of mucus and make it easier to bring up.  Guaifenesin is often mixed, however, with anti-histamines which are drying and should not be used unless you are overproducing thin watery mucus typical of allergic states.  In this last instance, drying medications might be helpful.  The amount of mucus necessary follows the Goldilockian Theory, not too much, not too little, but just right.

5.      Effect of certain foods. My mother always told me that milk produced phlegm (another name for mucus if you are a Hoosier, or for mucous if you’re a Brit) in the windpipe.      Mother was wrong?  Can it be? Studies have indicated that the viscosity of the milk gives a coated feeling to the throat and possibly thickens the saliva but that it does not alter the amount of mucus produced (National Asthma Campaign).       Mother was right! I knew it all along. While the production of mucus is not increased, the character of the mucus is. All dairy products, milk, cheese, ice cream and especially yogurt have been shown to alter the character of the mucus and make it thicker.  This makes it more difficult to clear.  One physician I know who treats some big time singers from the Lyric, recommends that they not eat or drink dairy products or, for that matter, that they not eat anything for at least four hours before singing (Personal communication).        On the other side of the coin, salty and spicy foods seem to thin out mucus.  (Personal communication).