Persistent cough making it difficult to sleep

Page 6 of 10 [ 157 posts ]  Go to page Previous  1 ... 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10  Next

beneficii
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 10 May 2005
Age: 39
Gender: Female
Posts: 7,245

15 Dec 2013, 8:45 pm

auntblabby wrote:
^^^
that sounds concerning, please bring this up when you see your doctor, sooner rather than later.


Thanks. I may need to see an eye doctor for this one. I've gone to one for floaters (that were black) and teeny tiny almost spark-like flashes and she did that thing where she dilated your pupils and used this thing that produced light, but she didn't see anything concerning then. Even with these flashes, though, I haven't really seen an increase in floaters which I suppose is good.

These symptoms have been helped somewhat, but they've persisted and people have been telling me I still look sick. My therapist called to reschedule my appointment today, because he had a cold, and he remarked that his cough wasn't as bad as mine.

I go back to the doctor tomorrow. I wonder if I will get a change in diagnosis with the current treatments not nipping this cough in the bud.


_________________
"You have a responsibility to consider all sides of a problem and a responsibility to make a judgment and a responsibility to care for all involved." --Ian Danskin


auntblabby
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 12 Feb 2010
Gender: Male
Posts: 113,605
Location: the island of defective toy santas

15 Dec 2013, 9:39 pm

they just had to throw the broad-spectrum sink at me when I would get in a similar condition to you where this stuff just keep going on for months. it would take 2-3 courses of the bug killers over about 2 months before whatever it was that was plaguing me would finally go away.



beneficii
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 10 May 2005
Age: 39
Gender: Female
Posts: 7,245

16 Dec 2013, 1:53 am

I've just been having another bad coughing fit, making it feel like I was about to throw up. I also couldn't use the Albuterol inhaler properly, because inhaling always increases the tickle, and this time it led to an immediate coughing response that surprised me.


_________________
"You have a responsibility to consider all sides of a problem and a responsibility to make a judgment and a responsibility to care for all involved." --Ian Danskin


auntblabby
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 12 Feb 2010
Gender: Male
Posts: 113,605
Location: the island of defective toy santas

16 Dec 2013, 2:13 am

beneficii wrote:
I've just been having another bad coughing fit, making it feel like I was about to throw up. I also couldn't use the Albuterol inhaler properly, because inhaling always increases the tickle, and this time it led to an immediate coughing response that surprised me.

the only thing that worked for me in terms of taming that infernal cough was to suck on menthol, which also had the nasty side effect of burning my tongue, so I think next time I will try the vicks inhaler again or some other way of inhaling aerosolized menthol.



beneficii
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 10 May 2005
Age: 39
Gender: Female
Posts: 7,245

16 Dec 2013, 12:04 pm

Well, I saw my doctor again and she says I'm having a post-infectious cough, and that I'm coughing due to bronchospasm and inflammation. My stethoscope examination was good this time. She continued the Tussionex and is putting me back on the Tessalon perles. She was about to give me Prednisone to treat the bronchospasm and inflammation, but I told her about the uncomfortable hypomanic-like side effects I suffered from back in 2010 when my allergist prescribed it. She then proposed to inject a steroid, but I asked her since it was for the bronchial tubes if I couldn't have an inhaled steroid, which I request confirmation for the inhaled steroid not really getting into your bloodstream. She confirmed that and she gave me a sample of Dulera, which is apparently an asthma medication that is both a corticosteroid and a bronchodilator. She said I would need to wash my mouth out after using it to prevent thrush on my tongue. She says I'm good to go to work.

So we'll see how that goes. If this does help the cough, but then I end the therapy and it gets cold again, followed by the cough returning, I would probably want to go back to the allergist at that point.

About the flashes, she says it's because the cough puts pressure on the eyeball. However, I wouldn't get flashes with just coughing, so I'm thinking I probably need to go back to the eye doctor.


_________________
"You have a responsibility to consider all sides of a problem and a responsibility to make a judgment and a responsibility to care for all involved." --Ian Danskin


beneficii
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 10 May 2005
Age: 39
Gender: Female
Posts: 7,245

16 Dec 2013, 2:09 pm

I made an appointment with an ophthalmologist to check out my right eye.

EDIT: Also, they drew my blood to check for evidence of pneumonia and gave me another antibiotic shot.


_________________
"You have a responsibility to consider all sides of a problem and a responsibility to make a judgment and a responsibility to care for all involved." --Ian Danskin


beneficii
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 10 May 2005
Age: 39
Gender: Female
Posts: 7,245

17 Dec 2013, 9:18 am

With the new medicine, I started feeling very tired and sleeping a lot, while having body aches. I'm going to call my doctor.


_________________
"You have a responsibility to consider all sides of a problem and a responsibility to make a judgment and a responsibility to care for all involved." --Ian Danskin


beneficii
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 10 May 2005
Age: 39
Gender: Female
Posts: 7,245

17 Dec 2013, 1:01 pm

Ugh. In the past 24 hours, I think I have spent more time sleeping than I have awake.


_________________
"You have a responsibility to consider all sides of a problem and a responsibility to make a judgment and a responsibility to care for all involved." --Ian Danskin


auntblabby
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 12 Feb 2010
Gender: Male
Posts: 113,605
Location: the island of defective toy santas

17 Dec 2013, 8:27 pm

beneficii wrote:
Ugh. In the past 24 hours, I think I have spent more time sleeping than I have awake.

your body is recovering from a protracted difficulty, so let it sleep as long as it needs.



beneficii
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 10 May 2005
Age: 39
Gender: Female
Posts: 7,245

17 Dec 2013, 9:38 pm

I wonder if my cough has become psychogenic. I notice that the medicine doesn't seem to help very much, I seem to cough more under stress (maybe), and I can usually sleep OK now without the cough really disturbing it.

EDIT: Then again, I do feel a genuine tickle, and at times I feel stuff moving in my chest as I cough. As well, there are times when my chest feels weird, like it's full of mucus, and tight, and the quality of my breathing changes to something approaching a wheeze. Just half an hour ago, I had such a coughing fit that it felt like I was about to throw up again! The descriptions I've read of psychogenic cough don't seem to include these symptoms.


_________________
"You have a responsibility to consider all sides of a problem and a responsibility to make a judgment and a responsibility to care for all involved." --Ian Danskin


auntblabby
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 12 Feb 2010
Gender: Male
Posts: 113,605
Location: the island of defective toy santas

17 Dec 2013, 10:30 pm

I can't remember if you told me if you tried menthol or not. it has worked to mute the coughs of smokers [not saying you are one] for decades.



beneficii
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 10 May 2005
Age: 39
Gender: Female
Posts: 7,245

17 Dec 2013, 11:23 pm

auntblabby wrote:
I can't remember if you told me if you tried menthol or not. it has worked to mute the coughs of smokers [not saying you are one] for decades.


I've tried Vicks Vaporub, particularly for sleep, which helps some.


_________________
"You have a responsibility to consider all sides of a problem and a responsibility to make a judgment and a responsibility to care for all involved." --Ian Danskin


auntblabby
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 12 Feb 2010
Gender: Male
Posts: 113,605
Location: the island of defective toy santas

17 Dec 2013, 11:52 pm

beneficii wrote:
auntblabby wrote:
I can't remember if you told me if you tried menthol or not. it has worked to mute the coughs of smokers [not saying you are one] for decades.


I've tried Vicks Vaporub, particularly for sleep, which helps some.

why not try it again?



beneficii
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 10 May 2005
Age: 39
Gender: Female
Posts: 7,245

18 Dec 2013, 12:43 am

auntblabby wrote:
beneficii wrote:
auntblabby wrote:
I can't remember if you told me if you tried menthol or not. it has worked to mute the coughs of smokers [not saying you are one] for decades.


I've tried Vicks Vaporub, particularly for sleep, which helps some.

why not try it again?


Thanks. I've tried it again.

About the habit-cough syndrome, I saw a video of what such a cough sounded like and honestly I could barely recognize it as a cough (figure 3/video 2):

http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/c ... 4/855.full

I recorded my coughing and the quality is definitely different.


_________________
"You have a responsibility to consider all sides of a problem and a responsibility to make a judgment and a responsibility to care for all involved." --Ian Danskin


beneficii
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 10 May 2005
Age: 39
Gender: Female
Posts: 7,245

18 Dec 2013, 1:28 am

I've gone back to the steroid inhaler (Dulera), but not the Tessalon perles, which I think might be responsible for at least the sleepiness--I think I had that problem with them before. I would think that the Tussionex should suffice, and the Tussionex doesn't seem to cause any side effects, really, and doesn't taste half-bad.

We shall see how I do.


_________________
"You have a responsibility to consider all sides of a problem and a responsibility to make a judgment and a responsibility to care for all involved." --Ian Danskin


beneficii
Veteran
Veteran

User avatar

Joined: 10 May 2005
Age: 39
Gender: Female
Posts: 7,245

18 Dec 2013, 3:27 pm

Well, stopping the Tessalon perles and just staying on the Tussionex and using the inhaler (Dulera) seems to help. I'm not drowsy at all. I think it was just the Tessalon perles that were causing the problem. Now the nurse called back and she said that it would be the Tussionex, which contains a narcotic, that would cause the sleepiness, and not the Tessalon perles, but I distinctly remember reviewing a list of side effects for the Tessalon perles and the list includes drowsiness among the common side effects. It's interesting that the narcotic doesn't make me sleepy, but the non-narcotic does.

I haven't seen much effect on my cough yet, but I know the Dulera needs at least a couple weeks to work, and some sources say as many as 6 weeks may be needed to finally eliminate the cough.


_________________
"You have a responsibility to consider all sides of a problem and a responsibility to make a judgment and a responsibility to care for all involved." --Ian Danskin