Why am I spitting up tar? Am I spitting up tar?

[tiredofsleeping]

I've been spitting up (what I assume is) tar for a couple years now. Usually in the morning I have about 10 minutes where I have to cough and try and bring up phlegm because I can feel it, and there are usually little black specks in it, sometimes stringy. I assume it's tar because I have been a smoker for about 5 years. Why is this happening, and is it in fact tar? I'm a 20 year old female if that helps at all.

 

[blue]

i aint native speaker, so i read a book and there was tar and i never understood what it means. thx for bringing it up

 

[frank]

That's soot. One of the primary ingredients of cigarette soot is tar.

Please talk to your doctor about quitting. We can't do a lung transplant, which will become important when you start coughing up blood with your soot.