Over the past week I've been coughing a lot. At first I'm pretty sure
I had a cold, but now I feel fine except that I keep coughing. It's
possible that it's just allergies now perhaps due to the wet weather
we've been having.
Taking expectorant helps (specifically, "Soothing Vicks 44E"), but it
has been a week and I'm not sure if I should be taking it for that
long. It's my understanding that we cough in order to move phlegm up
from the lungs and that the phlegm is there in the lungs to collect
irritants. If I keep taking this stuff, am I not just causing the
irritants to stay in my lungs?
I'm only 30 years old, so I'm not really worried about this as a
significant health issue, but I am concerned that I might be
prolonging my coughing by continuing to take the expectorant.
As a side note, I've had colds perhaps 4 times this year whereas in
the past I've gone years without getting noticeable cold symptoms. I'm
assuming this is due to high flu levels because of the vaccine
shortage, but it's also possible it's just a fluke. |
Clarification of Question by
mxnmatch-ga
on
07 Jan 2006 04:14 PST
Just to be clear, I don't think it's as serious as all that, but I'd
like to name a few additional symptoms.
I wasn't coughing much last night, so I went into work today and
didn't cough at all the entire day. But when I came home I started
coughing a little bit every now and then. Later at night I'm coughing
more. It's not a big deal, but it's a non-zero amount of coughing.
I'm wondering if I'm having allergies regarding something in my
apartment, but I can't imagine what it would be. I turned on my air
filterer, but it doesn't seem to detect anything, which means it's
probably not dust. I've been living here for years. The only thing
that's different recently is that it has been raining a lot.
I'm not coughing nearly as much as I was earlier in the week, but I'm
still wondering what the deal is.
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