A forum for people who suffer from chronic or persistent coughs to share ideas... these don't have any sort of official approval so you try any of them out at your own risk. I've consigned some of the more unusual ones I received to the Oddities bin on the left. I've also listed very simple remedies separately. If you're a sufferer, good luck, and please report back by commenting on the particular posting if you find success. Or just comment to the most recent posting and I will pick it up.

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Morphine - off it, then on it again!

I'd been taking the morphine sulphate (20mg. a day) for around 18 months and wanted to come off it - on the basis that it's not good to take a drug like that for too long, and to see what the effect might be.
I cut down to one tablet in the evening, for two weeks, then stopped altogether.  Well I'm afraid the effect was not good: within a day my cough had gone noticeably worse.  But I also very quickly got back into the pattern of waking up at 1, 2, 3, 4,or 5 o'clock in the morning and starting to cough soon after.  So after two weeks of that disruption to my life and damage to my energy levels, I went back on the drug - and immediately felt better.  My sleep improved the very same night, and my cough reduced - only a little, but significant enough to make it worth it. Two weeks on and I'm sleeping normally.

So I'm back on the morphine and I'll review that again in a year or so.

Incidentally, I'm about to retire from my job (as a university lecturer) and my wife thinks that the consequent reduction in stress could have a positive effect upon my cough, so we'll see.
 
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