Postural Drainage

Are you familiar with postural drainage? It refers to lying in a position that will allow gravity to help you get mucus out of your lungs. In a recent webinar by Dr. PJ McShane, she said it’s a critical part of airway clearance. However, at the same time she acknowledged that many of us have issues with reflux.

“Now a lot of you have GERD or aspiration. So you obviously don’t want to do this on a full stomach. If you just had lunch, now’s not the time to get your head below your hips, but it is very, very, very important to use postural positioning…this is just logical.

If you wet down the sputum and now it’s liquidy from the saltwater and then you lay down, the gravity is going to help drain that sputum. If you are one of my many patients who says I cough when I lie down to go to sleep at night that’s a sign that postural positioning can help enhance airway clearance because what’s making you cough when you lie down is that the sputum is starting to drain and collect in your central airways and you have to cough it out. So exploit that concept by using postural positioning.

For example, if you’ve got right middle lobe bronchiectasis and ladies out there with non tuberculous mycobacteria, I bet most of you do. So the right middle lobe is right underneath the right breast. You want to sort of lie on your back sort of on your left hand side and maybe even raise that right arm. So you’ve got lots of really good opening there to help get that right middle lobe in a position that it can drain into your main airway and you can cough out the sputum.”

After a year and a half of not being able to get sputum out, I found postural drainage was the key. My favorite position is the one I’m demonstrating in this photo. I often use my Aerobika while in postural drainage.

Please note this discussion is for educational purposes only. Talk to your medical team before changing your current care.

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