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.

Monday, December 1, 2014

My latest news from Wythenshawe Hospital

Thanks for the interest Kate ... I had a long, detailed discussion with my specialist, Prof.Jaclyn Smith, who as always was very understanding.  At my request I'm going to try morphine sulphate again - it's the only thing really that has helped much in the past, but she is also keen that I should combine that with giving another chance to the therapy propounded by the Speech and Language Therapist (they are now offering it at Wythenshawe instead of the long journey for me to Preston), which is much to do with breath control, sipping water, and cough suppression. As a side benefit she thought it might help my singing performance too!

In addition to that, after I've undergone some lung function tests, she wants to try me on a new type of inhaler because asthma might have developed as a contributing factor to my cough problem.
(There was also mention of a drug called Gabapentin, which I think has been tried with me in the past, but it might be worth considering again because of refinements in its use).

So all in all I felt at least encouraged that I had a direction to go in, and something to work on, to give me some hope of getting rid of this plague of a condition. Prof.Smith does have a calm, reassuring manner.

She also mentioned to me a drug treatment that has been recently trialled which is yielding promising results - around three-quarters of the people who took part reported quite an improvement with their cough.  Downside though is that it causes a loss in the sensation of taste, which some people found an unacceptable consequence.  There's much more detail on this in the November 25 edition of The Lancet, which is available online. Find the website, Respiratory section, and do a search for refractory cough which is the term (new to me) that they now use to describe this type of persistent/chronic condition.   I might be eligible for a later phase of that drug trial if the other treatments/therapies don't produce results.

Tuesday, November 4, 2014

Back to business ... lots more comments posted

Hello Everyone ... Followers .... does anyone FOLLOW this?

Anyway, today I've posted lots of comments that have arrived in my Inbox over the past year or so - apologies to everyone who's been waiting to see their words online. There've been several good ideas passed on - please feel free to have a trawl through.

For my part, I suppose I'm celebrating (ha!) having had my cough now for 20 years!!!!!

But it's not getting any better.  I've tried various drug therapies (incl. antibiotics)  in the last year or two, a no-wheat diet (again) but just nothing works.  I did get some comfort from an article posted on an American medical website Cough article which basically says in the vast majority of cases the cough is actually nothing serious and not life-threatening. That is a very interesting article, but uses lots of big, technical words and terms that zoomed right over my head.

So, allegedly, it's not going to kill me, but as far as I'm concerned it's still BLOODY INCONVENIENT! And debilitating, and depressing, and embarrassing, etc etc etc. At the end of this month I've asked for a referral back to the Specialist Cough Clinic at Wythenshawe Hospital.  Not been there for three years so let's see if those nice boffins there have come up with anything new.


 
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