Chronic cough: cigarettes, colds or cancer?

Cough is the body's way of getting rid of substances that have accumulated in the airways. The respiratory tract begins with the respiratory throat, trachea, and terminates in the lungs. Every day a small amount of mucus is formed in the cells that line this pathway. This mucus moisturizes the airways and captures any particles that you inhaled without letting them enter the lungs. Even if the mucus is formed constantly, in a healthy state it does not accumulate, because you constantly swallow it in small amounts during the day. But if an excessive amount of it is formed in response to infection or irritation, you remove it with a cough. The appearance of what you spit is very important: white sputum indicates a simple irritation, yellow or green indicates infection and red, of course, means blood.

You cough if you inhale some substance or thing. Did you happen that the food "did not go there"? You instantly begin to cough, reflexively. Most reflexes are not controlled. If the doctor has knocked a hammer on your knee, try to resist! Reflex sneezing is partially controlled - you can often hold or crush it; The cough can also be controlled, at least temporarily. The only time when it can not be stopped is when your lungs are in immediate danger, for example if you swallowed something "wrong" or inhaled something annoying.

Coughing can last several days if you just catch a cold or continue indefinitely when you have chronic bronchitis . (The main air passages to the lungs are called "bronchi", "it" is a suffix that speaks of irritation or infection.) Thus, bronchitis is irritation or infection of the bronchi.) If the cough lasts more than four weeks at any age, it should be examined. While a periodic cough is normal, it can not be said about the chronic, unless it is a consequence of a nervous habit. It can mean something quite sinister, like lung cancer .

Consider the following situation. Several patients who turned to the clinic had a prolonged dry cough - i.e. Cough, in which nothing spits. They did not have a temperature, they did not smoke, their nasal cavities were in order - and yet they coughed. All of them, however, took a relatively new drug , an inhibitor of the angiotensin-converting enzyme . These inhibitors are effective in the treatment of high blood pressure and chronic heart failure, but in some patients they cause a dry cough. If you and your doctor are not aware of this side effect, you can cough for weeks without relief.

There are people who cough when they are stressed . You can call this cough psychological, because it disappears during sleep. Chronic cough due to most other causes is maintained or even worse at night.

Chronic coughing can also be the result of an increase in the tongue . This is a small formation, similar to the tongue, located in the middle of the posterior surface of the pharynx. When food or liquid contacts the tongue, it causes a contraction of muscles that push the substance to the esophagus. But if the tongue becomes too large and remains so (sometimes it swells briefly for an allergic reaction), it can cause a persistent cough and requires surgical removal.

If you have allergic or infectious asthma , which periodically causes a spasm of the main airways, you will have a cough and heavy breathing with wheezing.

Another cause of cough is heart failure . If your heart is too weak to push all the blood that comes to it, the excess lingers in the lungs, filling them with "liquid". It is difficult for you to lie down at the same time without coughing and not feeling a lack of air.

Here are some useful tips to help you determine why you are coughing, but in any case show your doctor. The symptom of a cough is too important to ignore or diagnose it.

If you cough for three or four days and fever, this is probably due to an acute respiratory infection . If the cough lasts more than two or three weeks, it, by definition, has become chronic. You should consider the possibility of a lung tumor , especially if you smoke.

Previously , tuberculosis was much more common than today. With the advent of specific antibiotics, its frequency has sharply decreased. But now, due to many reasons - the aging of the population with a decrease in immune defense mechanisms, AIDS, the crowded living - tuberculosis is again on the rise. So, if the cough continues or appears in an elderly person living in a shelter, you should consider the possibility of tuberculosis.

If coughing occurs periodically over a period of several years and lung cancer and tuberculosis are excluded, then it is possible: a smoker's cough , chronic bronchitis and a disease called enlargement of the bronchi (bronchiectasis). The latter represents the weakening of the walls of air passages, complicated by an acute infection inside the lungs, which causes the constant formation of foul-smelling phlegm mixed with blood.

Did the cough start suddenly? Is it dry, that is, you do not spit anything? This is typical for any acute process, from colds to viral pneumonia , but if it is a child, it should be assumed that he inhaled some small object , such as peanuts, beans or a piece of toy, which partially blocked the air passages.

If you start coughing suddenly, you have chest pains and dilated veins on your legs, and the calves are sensitive, coughing can be a consequence of a blood clot in the lung. This is most likely if the cough is accompanied by a slight fever and the sputum is dyed with blood.

If you cough different amounts of stained sputum for months, you probably have chronic bronchitis . If it separates from half a cup of green foul-smelling sputum, then you may have a lung abscess (a chronic infection inside the lung that has been sequestered and difficult to reach with antibiotics). If what you spit, transparent or white, the more likely cause is irritation from polluted air , a virus or even cancer , rather than bronchitis or another infection .

A cough that gives foamy pink sputum and is accompanied by a noticeable lack of breathing (you feel like it's drowning), speaks of lung edema that occurs when your lungs fill with fluid as a result of heart failure.

Sputum is rusty or coffee-colored or jelly-like - a classic symptom of pneumococcal pneumonia . You will have chest pains and also temperature.

A cough that gives blood in any form should be considered an emergency . However, as you know, a tense cough can tear small vessels behind the pharynx and cause bleeding. It's not serious, but you have to check it out.

A chronic cough without phlegm indicates a tumor , heart disease, a nervous habit or side effect of angiotensin converting enzyme inhibitors .

A dry cough accompanied by pain in the center of the chest probably means acute laryngitis or trachobrachitis . On the other hand, a deep shooting cough occurs in the lower respiratory passages or in the lungs (often infection and cough begin at the top in the throat and then descend into the lungs).

If it hurts to take a deep breath and you cough, you have a pleurisy . The pleura, the wrapper that surrounds the lungs, can be affected in the early stages of pneumonia, pulmonary cancer or the virus.

The combination of cough and heavy night sweats makes you suspect tuberculosis .

Losing weight and coughing lead to a ghost of lung cancer . The same symptoms, together with a sharp lack of breathing, are also characteristic of a fatal opportunistic infection of the lungs that affects people with AIDS.

Cough along with hoarseness of voice is a bad combination and indicates the possibility of a tumor .

If you are hard, breathe wheezy, when you cough, you probably have chronic bronchitis and / or asthma .

The loss of consciousness caused by a cough, sometimes happens in those patients with chronic bronchitis who are overweight, who are excessively smoking and drinking.

What kind of work do you do? If you are a miner and cough, the connection with the profession is obvious, but the chronic inhalation of any dust can give you a professional dry cough.

Do you have a favorite bird at home or do pigeons flock to your window sill? You may have psittacosis , a pulmonary infection spread by birds. Fungal infections of the lungs will also cause coughing.

Have you got a cat or a dog, or have you moved recently, or have you bought new bedding, new clothes or a new mat? You may be allergic to any of the above. Or, an allergic reaction to air pollen ("hay fever"), dust, mold, crumbs or tobacco smoke is possible.

Remember: every cough should be explained, especially if it lasts longer than three or four days. It is dangerous to assume that he is just a consequence of your habit, and leave him without attention.

Symptom: chronic cough