@fels Antibiotics are the staple in treating Acute exacerbations of Bronchiectasis. Pulmonary function test where FEV1, FVC, TLC and DLCO may also be helpful in detailing cofounding measures of level of obstructive or restrictive disease. These values may best predict and follow response to prolonged medications (such as steroids). With that said, the HRCT scan is very helpful in determining the diagnosis and disease course as well. Depending on the underlying cause there may be more specific treatments in managing, so the remaining advice I give is more for general therapy or idiopathic causes of bronchiectasis.
Pulmonary Rehab Therapy is very beneficial for ongoing management and improved outcomes in bronchiectasis, so hopefully, your physician has scheduled you for such a program.
Flutter valve therapy on a daily basis is additionally helpful. Actually, playing the trumpet (especially if you can get in some time at circular breathing) can enhance this. They are simple devices and fairly inexpensive (the flutter valves not necessarily the trumpet).
Daily inhalation of saline by a nebulizer has been found to enhance pulmonary function in bronchiectasis.
Finally, chronic therapy using the antibiotic azithromycin at 500 mg on Monday, Wednesday and Fridays are helpful in systematic reviews. This works more as thinning secretions (called a biofilm) as opposed to the traditional of high dose, daily short term antibiotic courses. So in this way, azithromycin acts more as an anti-inflammatory agent than as an antibiotic.
Run these ideas by with your pulmonary physician and see if he would consider this. Let him know you received this advice from a physician that ran an Adult Cystic Fibrosis clinic for 27 years, and was on the accreditation committee for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation. Dr. GO
PS: Here is a link to an article that may be of help to you: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5478409/