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How To Tell If My Cough Is From Allergies

How Old Is Your Child

How to tell the difference between seasonal allergies and COVID-19 symptoms

Most people’s asthma starts by age 6, says Fernando Martinez, MD, a pediatric pulmonologist who leads the University of Arizonaâs Asthma and Airway Disease Research Center.

âIt is rare you will develop asthma . Nothing is impossible, but itâs much more unlikely,â he says.

You can get allergies at any point in your life. But outdoor allergies tend to arrive between ages 4 and 6, McMorris says. Indoor allergies can start as early as age 3, but not always. For instance, âa child can take a while to develop allergies to a pet,â he says.

It may be time for an allergy test if the symptoms seem to be worse when your kid is at home and you have a furry pet.

Also, does your child have eczema? This itchy skin condition often goes hand in hand with allergies. And if your child has eczema and allergies, and they are younger than 6, âthereâs a high probabilityâ they will get asthma, Martinez says.

Does My Child Have Allergies

Children get allergies when certain substances enter their body, and their immune system produces antibodies and histamine to ward off the threat. This creates an inflammatory response that leads to sneezing, sniffling, itchy eyes, and other allergy symptoms.

Depending on the cause, your kid’s allergies can be seasonal or year-round. “Seasonal allergies are often due to an increase in pollen counts of certain plants in your area,” says Dr. Jain. Allergy triggers vary by season, but they include weeds, grasses, trees and some molds. On the other hand, “year-round allergies can often be attributed to indoor allergens such as cat and dog dander, dust mites, mold, and cockroaches,” says Dr. Jain.

Symptoms of allergies include:

  • Runny nose with clear, thin mucus
  • Nasal and sinus congestion
  • Coughing
  • Itchy, watery, or red eyes
  • Sinus pressure
  • Allergic shiners

Allergic Rhinitis And Coughing

From congestion to itching, there are many troublesome symptoms of allergic rhinitis. The condition comes about as a result of the immune system, which regards things like pollen and mould spores as dangerous. So, when it comes into contact with these things it does its upmost to destroy them. This involves releasing the chemical which causes some of the problems already mentioned.

For those suffering from allergic rhinitis, if allergens enter the back of the throat they can cause irritation. This, in turn, triggers coughing an automatic response to get rid of the allergen. However, this is not the only thing that causes the problem.

When allergens irritate the nose it can cause the production of excess mucus as the body attempts to wash these things out. This mucus may cause a runny nose but it may also run down the back of the throat to cause irritation there a problem known as the postnasal drip. Once again this triggers coughing as the body automatically attempts to rid itself of this mucus.

Read Also: What Allergy Medicine Is Stronger Than Zyrtec

When Should I Seek Treatment For My Toddler

If you suspect your toddler has a cold, the vast majority of the time you can manage the symptoms at home while your childs cold resolves. Make an appointment to see our team at Valencia Pediatrics if your young childs condition doesnt improve after a couple of weeks or if your toddler develops a high fever.

If you think your toddler might have allergies, its important to make an appointment with Dr. Valencia. Allergy treatment from a pediatrician will allow your child to manage potentially life-disrupting and life-threatening symptoms.

At your appointment, Dr. Valencia performs allergy testing to determine what materials are causing your childs allergies if you arent certain. Then, Dr. Valencia develops a personalized plan to manage your toddlers allergies.

Dr. Valencia, with Micaela Marin-Tucker, PA-C and Megan Reynolds, C-PNP, offers specialized allergy treatment along with general pediatric care to children and adolescents. our office today to schedule allergy testing and management for your child.

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How Do I Know If I Have Covid Or An Allergy

TrustCare

Having a high temperature is a common sign of a cold or Covid. However, the coronavirus can cause loss or change in smell or taste without a stuffy nose.

Other allergies can cause a tingling sensation in the throat. Sore throats are also common with Covid or colds, but are more likely to feel sore than itchy.

Read Also: What Allergy Medicine Is Stronger Than Zyrtec

Get Your Allergies Under Control

Schedule an appointment with your doctor if youre experiencing persistent coughing that you suspect may be related to allergies. Your doctor will perform a physical examination, ask questions about your medical history and may recommend allergy testing to determine what substances are triggering your cough.

Take the medications your doctor prescribes. Your treatment plan may include an antihistamine to reduce stuffiness, a decongestant to help dry up mucus and possibly a prescription or over-the-counter cough medicine. If you have allergic asthma, take your asthma medicines as prescribed.

Follow up with your doctor if she recommends immunotherapy, commonly called allergy shots. This treatment decreases your sensitivity to allergy triggers and, over time, can reduce your symptoms, including persistent coughing.

  • Schedule an appointment with your doctor if youre experiencing persistent coughing that you suspect may be related to allergies.
  • This treatment decreases your sensitivity to allergy triggers and, over time, can reduce your symptoms, including persistent coughing.

Just Curious: Why Do We Cough Anyway

The purpose of a cough is to help us, says Monica Lee, MD, an otolaryngologist at Massachusetts Eye and Ear. Its your bodys way of trying to expel something it perceives as a threat in the airway, she says.

Those perceived threats can be a bunch of different things: a piece of food stuck in your throat, pollen, air pollution, or swelling or drainage from extra mucus in your throat. All those things irritate the sensory fibers in your airway, which then stimulate a cough.

As for what exactly happens in your body during a cough? Its kind of complex, says Dr. Lee. Basically, your vocal chords close briefly to generate pressure in the lungs. Once enough pressure is built up, your vocal chords open back up, and air flows quickly through your voice box, which generates that coughing sound. Kinda cool, huh?

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How Do I Know My Cough Is From A Cold

You know how allergy coughs are typically on the drier side? Coughs from colds tend to be on the wetter side .

Coughs that come along with a cold usually come along with stuffiness, along with postnasal drip , which can cause a sore throat or chest discomfort. A low-grade fever may also signal a cold instead of allergies.

Colds aren’t as immediate as allergies. Instead, they tend to develop over the course of a few days, says Dr. Bryson.

You can try a few different things to help relieve a cough. Decongestants can work for, well, congestion. And ingredients like dextromethorphan can can help ease the coughing itself. Just make sure you take any products as-directed.

It should be said, however, that a dry cough isn’t always allergies, just like a wet cough isn’t always a cold. Allergies can plague your nose, for example, causing post-nasal drip , while mild colds might not leave you stuffed up enough to produce any phlegm.

Home Remedies For Children With Asthma

Allergies or COVID-19 symptoms? Here’s how to tell the difference

As a parent, you probably want to do anything and everything you can to keep your childs asthma from interfering with their life. Fortunately, there are some simple steps you can take to help your child manage their asthma symptoms.

  • Your child spends around eight hours each night in bed, so asthma triggers there can really aggravate symptoms. You can use zippered dust mite covers for pillows and mattresses to help keep allergens from permeating their bedding. Additionally, washing bedding in hot water once a week can help reduce nighttime allergen exposure.
  • Being mindful about outdoor time can help reduce exposure to asthma triggers, such as pollen and industrial pollution. Monitoring the Air Quality Index on can help you decide whether it is a good day for your child to play outside. Any AQI rating above 100 is likely to be unhealthy for children with asthma.
  • Make sure that your childs school has an asthma action plan and that all supervisors know how to react if your child starts to show signs of an asthma attack. This includes outlining the specifics of your childs asthma treatment medicines.
Post Tags

Cough variant asthma is a subtype of asthma, which presents solely with a cough without any other symptoms such as dyspnea or wheezing. CVA is one of the most common causes of a chronic cough. More importantly, 30 to 40 percent of CVA cases in adult patients, unless adequately treated, may progress to classic asthma.

Contents

  • Expert Answers
  • Recommended Reading: What Is In Mucinex Allergy

    What About Herbal Remedies

    Herbal remedies can either be taken to treat seasonal allergies at the root of your cough, or be taken to treat the individual symptom.

    For example, Pollinosan Allergy Relief Tablets combines several different herbs designed to reduce inflammation of the mucous membranes which occurs as the body reacts to pollen. Unlike some conventional seasonal allergies treatments, Pollinosan does not cause drowsiness.

    If you are looking for a specific remedy for coughs, A.Vogel’s Soothing Cough Syrup containing extracts of spruce can help to ease a dry or tickly cough whilst Bronchosan may help with a mucous cough.

    Medical History And Physical Exam

    Your doctor will ask about your risk factors for asthma and your . They may ask also about any known allergies. This includes how often symptoms occur, what seems to trigger your symptoms, when or where symptoms occur, and if your symptoms wake you up at night.

    During the physical exam, your doctor may:

    • Listen to your breathing and look for of asthma
    • Look for allergic skin conditions, such as eczema

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    How To Cure Asthma Permanently At Home With Natural Remedies

    Asthma is a chronic lung disease that causes inflammation and narrowing of the bronchial tubes. Very common symptoms of asthma are shortness of breath, hearing a wheezing or whistling sound in the chest, or cough for a long time. 26 million people have asthma in the USA, out of which 7 million asthma patients are children. Asthma is a genetic disease that runs from one generation to another generation.

    50 % of patients suffer because their family had this disease at some point in time in their lives, and the rest are suffering because of environmental effects. There are treatments that can cure this disease. You can cure Asthma at home with natural remedies without medicine and live a healthy and active life.

    Asthma affects on airways system of the body

  • Airway obstruction: Airways are tubes that carry air to the lungs, and it gets inflamed if a person has Asthma. The airways tube can swell because of inflammation, and it reacts strongly to a certain inhaled substance. When the airway responds, the muscle got tight and caused less airflow into the lungs.
  • Inflammation: If you have asthma your bronchial tubes are red and swollen because of inflammation. Inflammation can cause long-term Asthma and that leads to damage to your lungs. One way to manage asthma is to control inflammation.
  • Airway Irritability: Asthma patient tends to have very sensitive airways. They narrow down and overreact to pollen, animal dander, dust, or fumes.
  • How Quickly Will I Develop Symptoms Of Covid

    How to tell if your sniffles, sneezing, or cough is a ...

    Allergy symptoms usually start within 48 hours of being exposed to the allergen. Around late March, allergy-causing plants and molds begin to proliferate in Nebraska and continue to wreak havoc on allergy sufferers through October. According to the Asthma & Allergy Center, tree pollen is currently high in the Omaha metro area.

    According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, COVID-19 has an incubation period of up to 14 days and the average time from infection to becoming symptomatic is five days. While the exact time from infection to the ability to transmit the disease is uncertain, it is believed that the virus can be transmitted to another person approximately two days before symptoms start.

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    A Chronic Cough Endures For More Than Eight Weeks

    . Any time you experience any symptom for such an extended period of time, you should consult a medical professional. A chronic cough could be caused by dozens of live-threatening conditions, from asthma to lung cancer, so you should act fast to schedule an appointment with your health provider of choice.

    This Is How To Tell If Your Cough Is Covid Doctors Say

    We’ve all been there: Every time you sneeze, sniffle, cough, or feel winded lately, you’re wondering whether or not you’ve come down with the dreaded novel coronavirus. And if you’re cursed enough to cough in public, even if you’re wearing a mask, everyone’s eyes will dart towards you with judgment, assuming the worst. As unsettling as it may be, it’s normal to have COVID on the brain 24-7 these days, but the truth is, you don’t need to panic right away if you find yourself coughing. There are ways to tell if your cough is a symptom of COVID or if it’s something else, like allergies, a cold, or the flu.

    “There is a wide spectrum of cough severity in COVID-19, from mild to severe coughs or even severe lung illness. It can be difficult to differentiate between a cough caused by COVID-19 or something else,” says Nate Favini, MD, medical lead at Forward. Though he suggests getting “tested as quickly as possible” if you have a suspicious cough, Favini and other medical professionals explain that there are also a few things to consider when trying to decipher whether your cough is related to COVID or not. Read on to see what experts suggest when identifying where your cough is coming from, and for more on how the virus is spreading, check out Dr. Fauci Says This One Thing Could Spread COVID More Than Anything Yet.

    Related: Fauci lays out optimistic vaccine timeline

    Read the original article on Best Life.

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    Of : Getting Comfortable

  • 1Drink plenty of water. Keep the mucus in your throat loose by drinking six to eight 8-ounce glasses of water every day. If you have a dry cough that doesnt produce anything, you need to stay hydrated so the coughing doesnt irritate your throat. This is especially important if colds and flu are triggers for your asthma symptoms.XResearch source
  • Increase your fluid intake if youre coughing up yellow or green mucus.
  • 2Purify the air. Keep the air in your home as pure as possible. Check any air filters in your home and avoid smokers. Since smoke is a common asthma trigger, talk to any smokers about not smoking around you. You should also avoid spraying hairspray and perfume.XResearch source
  • Since pollen can trigger your asthma, you should consider running an air conditioner on days when the pollen count is high. Just take care to regularly clean the air vents in your home so dust and mold isnt blown around.
  • Consider running a humidifier or leaving bowls of water around your home. This will add moisture to the air which can improve your breathing.
  • 3Relax your breathing. Avoid deep over breathing when you have an asthma cough. Some doctors believe that this can irritate your lungs even more. Instead, slowly breath only through your nose, keeping your inhalations and exhalations the same length. For example, breathe in through your nose while counting to 8. Hold your breath for as long as you can and breathe out for 8 counts. Stay calm, relaxed and still while you breathe.
  • How To Relieve Your Allergy Symptoms

    Dog Coughing From Allergies

    If youre convinced your cough is a result of allergies, start by making a few changes to decrease your exposure to potentially irritating substances: Keep your windows closed, shower as soon as you come inside after being outdoors, brush your pets after walks, or invest in an air purifier for your home.

    OTC medications are also a great starting point, Dr. Bassett says. Oral antihistamines, like Claritin and Allegra, help block the histamines that set off symptoms in the first place. Nasal steroid sprays, like Flonase, can help clear a stuffy nose if youre dealing with that, too.

    But the right treatment depends largely on the cause for a cough, Dr. Bassett says. If you dont see any improvement after taking these steps, reach out to an allergist, who can give you a proper diagnosis, help you identify your triggers, and potentially recommend prescription allergy meds or allergy shots.

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    Avoid Exposure To Allergens Or Irritants That Cause Asthma Symptoms

    The best way to prevent asthma at work is to minimize the sources of indoor and outdoor air pollution. Some key steps to solving indoor air problems are to identify the sources, remove the sources, and make sure the ventilation system is working properly and the airflow is not blocked.

    One of the most important steps you can take to prevent asthma symptoms is to identify what you are being exposed to at home and at work that may be causing your asthma to flare-up. Some exposures in the work environment have been associated with causing asthma symptoms.1 You may think of an industrial workplace or dirty job as a place where you may be exposed to things that could make your asthma worse. But, exposures to allergens and irritants in indoor office spaces are equally as important to consider when you have asthma. Office buildings can be a threat to lung health if not properly maintained. Below are ways to avoid exposure to allergens or irritants while at work:

    Identify your asthma triggers at work.Learn ways to limit your exposure to things that make your asthma worse or avoid them all together. Asthma triggers found in the workplace include:

    • mold
    • cleaning chemicals and scented personal care products
    • pests
    • stress

    Outdoor workers who have asthma also face risks of breathing problems from exposures to outdoor air pollution, especially for jobs on the road and near roadways. Common triggers for outdoor workers include:

    • Outdoor air

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