Cough Relief: How to Lose a Bad Cough

WAYS TO MITIGATE COUGH

Immunity as You Age

Q: Do we get sick less often as we get older because we’ve been exposed to everything? A: When it comes to infectious diseases, this is largely TRUE. Once we endure the sniffles, coughs, and flu bugs of childhood and adolescence, most of us can expect to be "under the weather" a lot less as adults. "If you’re an adult, you’ve probably had most of the childhood diseases already and have an acquired immunity, so your resistance is a little higher," says Russell Robertson, MD, chair...

“Even a little cough can be debilitating,” says Mark Yoder, MD, assistant professor of pulmonary and critical care medicine at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago.

Cold and flu season brings on hacking coughs that can leave your chest aching. But colds and flu aren’t the only problems that cause coughing. Allergies, asthma, acid reflux, dry air, and smoking are common causes of coughs. Even medications such as certain drugs for high blood pressure and allergies can cause chronic cough.

Most of the time, people can manage their coughs at home by taking over-the-counter medicine and cough lozenges, removing potential allergens, or even just standing in a steamy shower, says Giselle Mosnaim, an allergist and immunologist also at Rush.

Try these five tips to manage your cough at home:

1. Stay Hydrated

An upper respiratory tract infection like a cold or flu causes postnasal drip. Extra secretions trickle down the back of your throat, irritating it and sometimes causing a cough, Mosnaim says. 

Drinking fluids helps to thin out the mucus in postnasal drip, says Kenneth DeVault, MD, professor of medicine at the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, Fla. 

Drinking liquids also helps to keep mucous membranes moist. This is particularly helpful in winter, when houses tend to be dry, another cause of cough, he says.

2. Try Lozenges and Hot Drinks

Try a menthol cough drop, Yoder suggests. “It numbs the back of the throat, and that will tend to decrease the cough reflex.”

Drinking warm tea with honey also can soothe the throat. There is some clinical evidence to support this strategy, Yoder says. 

3. Take Steamy Showers, and Use a Humidifier

A hot shower can help a cough by loosening secretions in the nose. Mosnaim says this steamy strategy can help ease coughs not only from colds, but also from allergies and asthma.  

Humidifiers may also help. In a dry home, nasal secretions (snot) can become dried out and uncomfortable, Mosnaim explains. Putting moisture back in the air can help your cough. But be careful not to overdo it.

“The downside is, if you don’t clean it, (humidifiers) become reservoirs for pumping out fungus and mold into the air, and bacteria,” says Robert Naclerio, MD, chief of otolaryngology at the University of Chicago.

4. Remove Irritants From the Air

Perfumes and scented bathroom sprays may seem benign. But for some people they can cause chronic sinus irritation, producing extra mucus that leads to chronic cough, says Alan Weiss, MD, a general internist at the Cleveland Clinic. Take control by avoiding such scented products. 

The worst irritant in the air is, of course, smoke. Almost all smokers eventually develop “smoker’s cough." Everyone around the smoker may suffer from some airway irritation. The best solution? Smokers need to stop smoking. (Yoder warns that severe chronic cough can be a sign of emphysema or lung cancer in smokers, so see a doctor if you’re a smoker with chronic cough.)  

5. Take Medications to Treat Coughs

When steamy showers, hot teas, and cough drops don’t help, you can turn to over-the-counter medicines to ease your cough.

Decongestants: Decongestants relieve nasal congestion by shrinking swollen nasal tissue and reducing mucus production. They dry up mucus in the lungs and open up the airway passages, Weiss says. 

Decongestants come in pills, liquids, and nasal sprays under many brand names. Look for phenylephrine and pseudoephedrine as the active ingredient in decongestants taken by mouth, but be careful. These medicines can raise blood pressure, so people with hypertension need to be careful with their use. Also, overuse of decongestants can lead to excessive dryness, which can trigger a dry cough.

Decongestant nasal sprays, if used for more than 3 or 4 days, can lead to rebound congestion, Mosnaim says. It’s best to use them for 2 or 3 days and then stop.  

Cough suppressantsand expectorants: If you’re coughing so much that your chest hurts and you’re getting a bad night’s sleep, consider a cough suppressant such as dextromethorphan, Mosnaim says. Yoder recommends using cough suppressants only at night.  

When a person has a cough that is thick with phlegm, Mosnaim says it helps to take a cough expectorant such as guaifenesin. Expectorants thin out the mucus so one can more easily cough it up, she says. 

Note: The FDA advises against giving cold and cough medicine to children under age 4. These common over-the-counter drugs can cause serious side effects in young children.

Find Out What’s Causing Your Cough

Coughs caused by the common cold usually go away in a few weeks. Chronic, persistent coughs may be caused by underlying medical problem such as allergies, asthma, or acid reflux -- or by the medications you take. To lose those coughs, you need to treat the underlying problem.

Talk to your doctor if your cough lasts longer than 4 weeks, or if you are coughing up blood or having other symptoms such as weight loss, chills, or fatigue.