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.

Tuesday, October 15, 2013

Cut out wheat?

Just had a comment from Sheila who writes: I quit eating wheat products eight weeks ago and my chronic cough of 20 plus years disappeared!! I feel free!!!!

Sheila, I would love to hear more about you and your condition, so if you see this please post again ... did you have any other symptoms/problems as well as chronic cough e.g. bloating, weight problems?  How do you KNOW it was wheat - what tests did you have? How quickly did the cough disappear - right away, or was it AFTER the eight weeks you mention? I, we, need more information...

I've been down this route, more than 10 years ago now: I had tests for food intolerance which were largely negative i.e. no obvious problems.  But I still tried a non-wheat and dairy diet, only for about 3 weeks and it was hard so I gave it up - it didn't seem to make any difference.  But maybe I wasn't persistent enough?

As I think I've posted elsewhere, I recently had another bronchoscopy, which didn't reveal anything.  So I'm again in the position of being desperate to try anything... and I might give no wheat a try.

But Sheila, if you're there, please write again???




Friday, January 18, 2013

News update

Visiting my blog for the first time in a while I notice it's just over a year since I was last on the radio!!!

Anyway, quite a few interesting posts recently under that topic...

From my point of view, yesterday I had my first, long-awaited, appointment with a Speech & Language Therapist.  The theory seems to be this... from all the various investigations I've had over the years, there isn't an identifiable cause/reason for the cough, but my "throat has developed an overall heightened sensitivity, so I cough more easily and intensely."  What I need to do is break the habit  and learn to control the cough: if I can reduce the number of times I cough it should reduce the overall sensitivity.

What the approach boils down to, apart from some odd face-pulling exercises which I think may be a bit token, is that I have to stop myself from coughing or clearing my throat by sipping water repeatedly until the urge goes, combining it with taking small sniffs and breathing out through the nose - so sips and sniffs!

I tried it when I woke at 4am this morning and it did seem to work, to an extent - I still coughed, but nowhere near as much as usual, and I wasn't racked with it and exhausted by the end of it ... I even went back to sleep.

Early days yet, I'll report back in a couple of weeks time.


 
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