Avoid Exposure To Allergy Triggers
Avoid exposure to substances you know you are allergic to — a strategy known as allergen avoidance. Whether you have a cough related to seasonal allergies or allergic asthma, this is an important part of managing allergy symptoms.
Stay away from cigarette and wood smoke, which irritate the airways and may trigger bouts of coughing. Also avoid exposure to strong, irritating fumes, such as those from cleaning products, fragrances or industrial chemicals.
Avoid being outdoors when pollen and mold counts are high if you have seasonal allergies. Keep allergens out of your home by keeping windows closed. Minimizing your time outdoors when the air quality is poor and during periods of high humidity or very cold weather may also help reduce allergy-related coughing.
Clean your home thoroughly to reduce allergens in the home. Dust and vacuum regularly, and wear a mask when cleaning to prevent breathing in allergens. Using an air purifier with a high-efficiency particulate air, or HEPA, filter may also trap allergens and keep the air in your home cleaner.
Tips
If you continue to experience persistent coughing, visit your doctor to determine whether your treatment plan requires revision.
Warnings
If you experience trouble breathing, dizziness, lightheadedness or wheezing, seek immediate medical attention.
Symptoms Of Hay Fever
Growing seasons cause plants to bloom and molds to multiply, so youll usually experience your symptoms at the same time every year. The timing can help you confirm that your symptoms are due to hay fever and not a viral infection.
Symptoms associated with hay fever include:
Year-round triggers for hay fever include:
- pet dander, such as from cats, dogs, or birds
- spores from fungi and molds that grow indoors
These allergens set off a chain reaction after they get into your system. A hay fever cough is an aftereffect of postnasal drip.
Postnasal drip occurs when allergens irritate the lining of your nose. This triggers your nasal passages to produce mucus, a sticky substance thats supposed to remove harmful or dirty particles from the air. Mucus associated with allergens tends to be more watery than the mucus your body produces when you arent sick or experiencing allergies. This watery mucus drips out of your nose and down your throat. This tickles the throat and leads to a hay fever cough.
This cough usually comes with a constant tickling feeling in the throat. If youre exposed to your allergen when youre outdoors, your coughing will most likely be more frequent in the daytime.
However, your cough will generally be worse at night. This effect is largely due to gravity. During the day, you stand and sit up more than at night. Mucus cant drain as easily at night when youre lying down.
Allergy Cough Vs A Cold
Both seasonal allergies and the common cold can cause a cough and other similar symptoms such as a runny nose.
However, the two have different causes and durations, and some symptoms are unique to colds.
- Cause: Allergies are caused by a reaction to something in your environment. A cold is caused by a viral infection.
- Duration: Allergies may last as long as youre exposed to the allergen that bothers you . A cold tends to resolve after 1-2 weeks.
- Symptoms: With a cold, its more common to experience a sore throat, body aches, and a headache these symptoms are less likely to occur with allergies. You might also feel discomfort in your chest with the common cold, but thats unlikely to happen with allergies unless you have asthma.
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What An Allergy Cough Feels Like
What an allergy cough feels like depends on whats happening in your body.
If your throat is irritated by an allergen, you might feel a tickle in your throat and experience a dry cough.
Postnasal drip due to allergies can also cause a tickle in your throat, but in this case you may cough up mucus or phlegm.
This is called a wet, or productive, cough.
Additionally, allergies can exacerbate asthma and cause shortness of breath and wheezing.
If this happens, use your asthma medication .
How To Stop Constant Coughing From Allergies
Indoor or outdoor, seasonal or year-round, all types of allergies can potentially cause constant coughing. Along with a runny nose, sneezing and watery and itchy eyes, allergic cough can be disruptive and annoying. Coughing associated with allergies is often caused by postnasal drip, when mucus from your nose runs down the back of the throat. Allergic asthma may also cause persistent coughing 2. With this type of asthma, symptoms are triggered by exposure to allergens, such as pollen, dust mites and mold spores.
If you are experiencing serious medical symptoms, seek emergency treatment immediately.
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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.
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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? It’s 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?
Other Possible Causes Of Chronic Cough
A chronic cough may be a sign of a wide range of illnesses and diseases. Some of the most common are:
- Allergic rhinitis
- Some medications such as ACE-inhibitors for blood pressure
- Primary lung disease
You should refer to your GP for a proper evaluation and differential diagnosis of your chronic cough.
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How To Treat An Allergy Cough
Oral antihistamines are the first-line treatment for allergy symptoms, blocking the underlying mechanisms that can lead to an allergy cough. Second-generation antihistamines are usually preferred for daytime use because they are less likely to cause drowsiness.
To treat the cough itself, you can consider the following options:
- Take an over-the-counter expectorant like Mucinex to loosen phlegm.
- Use an over-the-counter decongestant Sudafed to open nasal passages.
- Use a nasal steroid spray like Nasacort to relieve inflammation and ease breathing,
- Suck on a cough lozenge, especially ones containing eucalyptus.
- Use a saline nasal spray or irrigation, like a neti pot, to clear nasal passages.
- Use a humidifier or vaporizer to help moisturize the air.
- Inhale steam either with a commercial inhaler or a heated pot of water to loosen mucus and ease throat irritation.
Allergic Cough Treatments And Remedies
There are several remedies as well as treatments available OTC for allergic cough.
The first thing to do is to understand what substance is causing the allergy. Seasonal allergies are commonly triggered by grass pollen, ragweed pollen, spores from molds and fungi, and tree pollen. Year-round allergies are commonly triggered by dust, mites, pet hair or dander, and mold. Your doctor may order a Skin Prick Test or a Specific IgE Blood Test to find out what youre allergic to.
Once the allergen is known, you should avoid it. You may want to keep the windows closed during allergy season both at home and in your car, take a shower and change your clothes after spending time outdoor, and get an air purifier or making sure your air conditioning system has a clean filter. Face masks with filters are also an option when being outdoors. You can also check your local pollen counts online and avoid going out during peaks.
Other remedies for allergic cough are:
Ask your physician for a proper recommendation on the right treatment for your allergic cough.
- Allergy and Asthma The Basics to Best PracticesM Mahmoudi Springer, 2019
- Pediatric Allergy Principles and Practice, 3rd Ed.DYM Leung, SJ Szefler, FA Bonilla Elsevier, 2016
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What Is The Return Policy
Return policy is the most important thing to consider regarding the best cough medicine for allergies from a manufacturer. If youre unsatisfied or something goes wrong with your purchase, youll want to know that you have some way to go about it. Additionally, weve compiled a list of highly reputable brands based on their return policies and customer service to help people find and choose the best cough medicine for allergies.
How To Prevent A Cough From Allergies With These Precautions
- Avoid getting close to sick people
- Get rid of or stay away from irritants such as scented sprays and perfumes
- Drinking plenty of water and natural juices will help you to get rid of persistent cough allergies
- Always blow your nose than a sniffle. It will help you to get rid of stuffy nose dry cough allergies
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A Multitude Of Cough Causes
While coughing exists to protect us from infections of the respiratory tract, it is commonly found with other conditions, too. We associate asthma with wheezing and difficulty breathing, but for many, its main symptom is a cough. Heartburn is the cardinal symptom of gastroesophageal reflux disease , but the stomach acid irritating the esophagus and the back of the throat can also produce a nasty cough.
Coughing is also a side effect of several drugs, most notably ACE inhibitors such as lisinopril and enalapril, which are mainstays in the treatment of high blood pressure and heart failure. The ACE inhibitor cough sometimes begins months after you start taking the drug. Fortunately, there are good alternatives for those who have this problem.
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease , bacterial sinusitis, lung cancer all may announce their presence with a cough. And, of course, there’s the infamous smoker’s hack.
Several other conditions can also cause postnasal drip and its resulting cough, including sinusitis, exposure to air pollution, hay fever , and other allergies that cause nasal congestion.
Why Allergies May Cause A Cough
A cough is your bodys reflex to an allergen or irritant in your throat or airway.
Allergies can also cause a cough due to postnasal drip.
Normally, mucus in your sinuses drains through your nose.
But if your sinuses are swollen due to allergies and cant drain, mucus may drip into your throat and trigger a cough.
Its also common for people with seasonal allergies to experience postnasal drip at night when theyre lying in bed.
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Can Allergies Cause A Cough
Yes, and you can blame it on your immune system. When your body mistakes a substance like pollen or mold as a harmful invader, it sets off an intense response to try and flush it out, according to the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology . During this process, your cells release histamine and other chemicals, which triggers an allergic reaction. Cue the cold-like symptoms, including a sore throat, runny or stuffy nose, sneezing, and coughing.
Allergy coughs are typically caused by swelling or irritation of the airways, the AAAI says. And, if you develop post-nasal dripwhen the mucus hanging out in your sinuses trickles down the back of your throatthat can also cause a cough, Dr. Bassett says.
What Is Allergic Cough Symptoms And Remedies
Allergic cough is defined as cough caused by allergy rather than an infection. Cough is one of the most common signs and symptoms of diseases both in adults and children, from a common and transient respiratory tract infection as the common cold to more serious and chronic illnesses which can even be life-threatening.
In this article, we will discuss cough developing due to allergic disease such as allergic rhinitis, commonly known as hay fever.
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Risks And Side Effects
While most of the supplements and tips described above can provide natural allergy relief safely, there are some precautions to keep in mind.
When allergies are mild or moderate, they are usually not very threatening and go away with time. However, severe allergic reactions can be dangerous and require medical attention.
Anaphylaxis is the term for a severe allergic reaction, which can happen due to contact with food allergens, drugs/medications or insect stings. Symptoms usually affect the lungs, blood vessels or heart and can include:
- trouble breathing
If you or your child experience these symptoms, head to your doctor or the emergency room right away to prevent complications.
What can you do for severe allergies? Your doctor may need to prescribe allergy shots or prescription asthma medications, such as bronchodilators and inhaled corticosteroids.
Discuss these options with your health care provider, and consider trying the natural allergy relief remedies described above in addition to using medications.
Natural Remedies For An Allergy Cough
From herbal remedies to homemade treatments, there are a number of ways to address an allergy cough.
- Honey and lemon a cup of hot water mixed with fresh lemon and a squeeze of honey is very soothing for an irritated throat
- Stay hydrated drinking lots of water will help to soothe the back of the throat and prevent the area from becoming dry and irritated. Water also has the added benefit that it rinses the throat thus helping to rid it of unwanted allergens
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Back Up: Why Do We Cough Anyway
Coughing is a natural response to irritation in your throat or airways. To put it simply, receptors in the throat, trachea, and lungs respond and lead to activation of the cough center in the brain, explains Clifford Bassett, M.D., founder and medical director of Allergy and Asthma Care of New York.
Coughing is an essential defense mechanism, he says, and its your bodys way of pushing any unwanted stuff out, including pollen, mucus, and pieces of food, to make more room for air to get through.
Dry Cough Medicine In The Philippines
There are lots of available medicines for dry cough in the Philippines. These can range from home remedies and medicinal plants to over-the-counter and prescription pills.
The best dry cough medicine in the Philippines will depend on the cause and severity of the symptom. If your dry cough is caused by a viral infection, your doctor may prescribe you an antiviral medication.
A minor dry cough lasting for a few days can be treated with home remedies like medicinal plants and OTC medicines. For OTC medicines, you can rely on cough suppressants, expectorants or decongestants.
Here are some of your treatment options to relieve a minor dry cough at home.
- Robitussin DM: this OTC cough syrup contains dextromethorphan hydrobromide and guaifenesin, both of which are effective as cough suppressant and expectorant.
- Sinecod Forte: this cough syrup contains butamirate citrate, a cough suppressant which is used to treat dry cough of multiple origins.
- Tuseran Forte: this contains dextromethorphan HBr, phenylpropanolamine HCl and paracetamol. You can take Tuseran Forte to treat cough, cold and headaches.
- Plemex Forte: this is a cough suppressant and expectorant derived from lagundi leaves. This helps reduce coughing and congestion caused by common cold, flu, asthma, mild bronchitis and other illnesses. It is available in syrup and capsule forms.
If youre looking for a cough medicine in the Philippines for kids, you can consider the following options as advised by your doctor:
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When Testing May Be Recommended
Testing by a specialist known as an allergist may be recommended if allergy symptoms are severe and/or are interfering with your quality of life.
The aim of the testing is to determine which allergens you are hypersensitive to. In some cases, allergy shots may be given to gradually desensitize you to those allergens.
The two tests commonly used to diagnose allergies include:
- Skin prick test: This involves the insertion of tiny amounts of suspected allergens beneath the skin to see if a reaction occurs.
- Blood tests: These are IgE-specific tests, also known as RAST testing, that can detect antibodies associated with certain allergens.
An allergist can also help determine if your cough is related to allergic rhinitis or asthma. Identifying the underlying cause is crucial as each of these two conditions is treated differently.
Top 9 Natural Allergy Relief Home Remedies
According to the Allergy and Asthma Foundation of America, one in five people, or an estimated 50 million Americans, suffer from some type of allergies. The chances are high that you or someone you know deals with ongoing allergies, whether seasonal allergies, food allergies or another type, and could use allergy relief at least from time to time.
Most people who struggle to find allergy relief go to the doctor to be treated and/or are routinely given pharmaceuticals ranging from acetaminophens to antihistamines, both of which may actually further aggravate the symptoms they were given for. If you prefer not to take prescriptions to keep your symptoms under a control, what can help allergies at home?
Home remedies for allergies including symptoms like congested sinuses, headaches, and watery or itchy eyes include using frankincense essential oil, eucalyptus oil and quercetin. Below youll learn about nine amazing, all-natural home remedies for allergies that can help provide fast allergy relief.
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