Color of Nasal Discharge

• The nasal discharge normally changes color during different stages of a cold.
• It starts as a clear discharge and later becomes cloudy.
• Sometimes it becomes yellow or green colored for a few days; and this is still normal.
• Intermittent yellow or green discharge is more common with sleep, antihistamines or low humidity.  (Reason: All of these events reduce the production of normal nasal secretions.)
• Yellow or green nasal secretions suggest the presence of a bacterial sinusitis ONLY if they occur in combination with [1] sinus pain OR [2] the return of a fever after it has been gone for over 24 hours OR [3] nasal discharge lasts over 14 days without improvement.
• Nasal secretions only become a problem when they block the nose and interfere with breathing through the nose. During a cold, if nasal breathing is noisy but you can't see blockage in the nose, it usually means the dried mucus is farther back. Nasal washes can remove it.