![]() A persistent cough could be a symptom of a serious illness. acid reflux where acid comes up from the stomach and irritates the upper airway while you’re sleeping, causing a persistent dry cough the next dayĥ.side effects to medicine, including some blood pressure medications and non-steroidal medications like ibuprofen and aspirin.uncontrolled allergies, animal and environmental.That usually will extend past most viral infections or any other respiratory infection. In our cough clinic, the definition of a chronic cough would be a cough that is persistent for more than three weeks. If necessary, your primary care doctor will refer you to a pulmonologist. Make an appointment to see your primary care doctor. If you’re still coughing and feeling sick after three weeks, then you should probably be evaluated. It’s frustrating but it’s a normal, protective and self-limited reflex. When you’re in the middle of an infection and you’re coughing, it doesn’t seem like it’s ever going to end. If you’ve been coughing for more than three weeks, you may have a chronic cough. In that situation, you might consider taking a cough suppressant with codeine to blunt the cough reflex and assist with sleep.Ĥ. When you’re trying to fall asleep, coughing can make it really hard to sleep, so it’s more irritating and frustrating for you and, potentially, your bed partner.įor some patients, their cough is so severe that it disrupts their sleep to the point where they aren’t getting any sleep at all, which impacts their ability to function during the day. If you’re coughing throughout the day, you cough and you continue with your activities. If you’ve got an upper respiratory tract infection with any kind of sinus congestion or runny nose, when you lay down to go to bed, the mucus drains down the back of your throat on top of your upper airway, which causes you to cough.Ĭoughing at night is more disruptive because you’re trying to sleep. If it’s thick and sticky, it’s hard for you to cough it out of your lungs or blow it out of your nose. Staying hydrated with help thin out the mucus in your lungs and sinuses to help you get it out of there easier. If you have an infection, it’s always good to drink plenty of fluids. The lungs are quite sensitive, so when they are inflamed and irritated, it doesn’t take a lot to cause a cough. So even after the real meat of the infection is gone and you’re starting to feel better, you have this cough because you still have some inflammation in the lungs. Sometimes there’s still some residual airway inflammation in the lungs from typical upper respiratory tract infections. The cough could be due to an upper respiratory tract infection. That’s a reflex mechanism that we’ve developed to protect our airway.Ģ. We’ve all had the experience where we take a drink and it goes down the wrong pipe, we cough and it comes spraying out of our nose or mouth. Another is to protect your airway from anything going into your lungs so you don’t choke. We’ve learned to cough to expel the mucus that may be down there. One is to eliminate things that are in the lungs that cause irritation. Humans developed the ability to cough over time to do a number of things. So why do we cough and what can we do about it? Here are five things you should know about that persistent cough. ![]() But for some people, the cough hangs around a little longer. Usually after a week or so, the cold runs its course and most of the symptoms go away. ![]() When coupled with a runny nose, sneezing, sore throat and fatigue, it can make you feel pretty miserable. One of the classic cold symptoms is a cough. ![]()
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