Help!

[pegkerr]

Your remedies, please, for a persistent, non-productive, agonizing, hacking cough, caused by spring pollen allergies. I have taken Claritin, and Ibuprofin for the fever, and I'm eating cough drops and sucking down tea, but this cough is killing me, and it's tearing me apart. Suggestions?

I'm desperate here.

Comments

[naomikritzer]

Cool mist vaporizer or steam humidifier (depending on whether cool mist or warm steam sounds more pleasant).

And/or go to the doctor and get a scrip for codeine. That's the only thing that knocks out Ed's persistent unproductive coughs. (Well, they also gave him an inhaler, which also seems to help.) I don't think it much matters what triggered it originally (virus vs. allergy) -- coughs are like any other irritation, they can become cyclical and self-perpetuating until something breaks the cycle.