Dry cough, which is classified as unproductive, is basically one of the symptoms of respiratory diseases, which are currently in first place in terms of prevalence. Moreover, this problem is relevant for people of any age category. Every year, both adults and small patients turn to doctors in connection with pathologies of the bronchopulmonary system. Moreover, there are more and more such patients due to the unfavorable environmental situation, hereditary burden, as well as many household and professional risk factors.
Based on available data, dry cough is a permanent symptom in 11-18% of the world's population. But, as a rule, the patient does not regard it as dangerous. However, the cough reflex greatly weakens the body. However, it can cause complications in the form of pneumomediastinum and pneumothorax.
Symptom definition
Cough is trickya protective mechanism that the body needs to cleanse the respiratory tract from foreign and dangerous objects. Such a reflex expels the pathogenic agent causing mucosal damage along with sputum. When coughing, the muscles of the respiratory organs create an effort that accelerates the release of air from their bronchi, and the epithelium of this organ pushes sputum out of the body with its cilia.
However, sometimes the cough is dry. With this process, there is no sputum. In this case, there is either simply no mucus, or it is produced in small volumes. This causes a dry frequent cough in a person. If this condition lasts up to 3 weeks, then it is considered acute. From three weeks to three months - protracted. If a dry frequent cough does not go away for more than this period, then it is a sign of a chronic process. At the same time, additional symptoms occur in the form of hoarseness in the voice, shortness of breath, swollen lymph nodes in the neck, and weakness.
Varieties
Everyone should pay attention to the occurrence of frequent and dry cough. After all, if you do not make efforts to get rid of its acute type, then the problem will become protracted and take on a chronic character.
What form can a frequent and dry cough take in an adult and a child?
- Chronic. Sometimes such a cough occurs due to bronchial asthma, excess weight, existing chronic diseases. Heavy smokers also suffer from this form of unpleasant symptom.
- Barking. Such a cough is evidence that the respiratory system was attacked by pathogenic microorganisms ordamage to the vocal cords. As a result, the person develops hoarseness and hoarseness.
- Tearful and continuous. This form of an unpleasant phenomenon indicates the occurrence of whooping cough or asthma. Frequent dry cough in a child that occurs at night, sometimes becomes the result of a DTP vaccination.
- Long with a dull tone. With this form of frequent dry cough in a child or adult, pneumonia can be suspected.
- Day or night. Such forms of cough are most often manifested due to the occurrence of pathologies of the circulatory system. This may be pericarditis, pulmonary embolism, heart disease or heart failure. Sometimes nocturnal or daytime cough occurs due to neurological diseases.
Causes of dry cough
What causes this unpleasant phenomenon? Its reasons may be:
- Whooping cough. This pathology is characterized by frequent coughing shocks, accompanied by a deep breath, during which a whistling sound is heard.
- Pharyngitis. With this pathology, not too intrusive short coughs are observed. In this case, the nasopharyngeal mucosa dries up or mucus accumulates directly at the entrance to the larynx.
- Tuberculosis. This pathology causes a cough in which you can hear low tones that tend to gradually increase.
- Tracheitis and laryngitis. With such pathologies, a barking cough appears. Its occurrence is facilitated by inflammatory processes covering the vocal cords. If the patient hasobserved with a barking dry cough, frequent breathing with difficulty and bubbling sounds, then this is a sign of the appearance of croup.
- Bronchial asthma or obstructive bronchitis. In this case, a dry and frequent cough is obsessive and occurs closer to the morning.
- Whooping cough. Cough with this disease is obsessive.
- Mental disorders. Sometimes while eating or when talking in a dry cough, metallic notes are heard. This condition can be the result of a mental disorder. However, such a pathology can be diagnosed only after a thorough examination.
- Sinusitis, rhinitis or sinusitis. The development of such diseases is accompanied by the accumulation of sputum in the respiratory tract. When it enters the lungs, an involuntary cough occurs.
- Heartburn. Often, a dry, frequent cough without fever appears in an adult. And the reason for this phenomenon is the abuse of various hot sauces and spices.
- Allergy. A very frequent dry cough indicates that there is some kind of irritant that negatively affects the respiratory system. It can be washing powder and house dust, plant pollen or household chemicals. Often these patients experience coughing fits. Their amplification occurs at night.
Among the factors that provoke a very dry and at the same time frequent cough are also:
- emotional experiences and stressful situations;
- smoking that irritates the bronchi;
- foreign bodies entering the mucosa;
- adverse reactions,arising from taking medications;
- heart failure;
- oncology;
- pathology of the thyroid gland;
- Problems with the gastrointestinal tract caused by the formation of a fistula in the esophagus or trachea.
Diagnostics
If there is a frequent dry cough, what should I do to get rid of the problem? First of all, it is necessary to eliminate its cause. And for this you need to see a doctor. He will examine the patient's complaints and conduct an examination. To make an accurate diagnosis, it will be necessary to donate blood and sputum (if the latter is available) for the necessary research.
With certain causes of dry cough, their identification is possible during the passage of x-rays. This method allows you to detect the presence of darkening of the lung field or changes in the lung pattern, as well as the development of tumors in the chest area.
Sometimes, doctors use spirometry and spirography to identify the causes that provoked a dry cough. Conducting such studies makes it possible to identify diseases of the bronchopulmonary system at the earliest stages of their development.
The most effective examination method, which is used in case of dry cough, is bodiolethysmography. In this case, various parameters are set not only for the lungs, but for the whole body. Based on the data obtained, the doctor draws conclusions about the level of he alth of the patient and the presence of hidden pathologies. Body lithysmography is an absolutely painless procedure, harmless to the body and does not requireno prior preparation. In this regard, you can do it, if necessary, quite often.
Before prescribing a course of treatment for dry and frequent cough, tussography can be performed in specialized clinics. This is a modern method, according to the results of which specialists judge the intensity and frequency of coughing, as well as its distribution over time. Such an examination allows you to establish the exact cause of the cough. Based on this, her correct treatment will be prescribed.
If frequent dry cough is protracted, the doctor sometimes sends his patient for bronchoscopy. In this study, a special probe is used, equipped with a miniature video camera. The bronchoscope is inserted into the lungs and transmits the resulting image to the monitor.
There is also a method of thoracoscopy. The study of the causes of dry cough in this case is carried out using a special device. A thoracoscope (as such a device is called) is inserted into the lungs through a puncture in the chest wall. This technique allows you to identify tuberculosis, pleurisy, lung cancer and other diseases.
Drug therapy
How to treat frequent dry cough? Resorption of lollipops will help to remove such symptoms in a child or in an adult. Moreover, it is not at all necessary that they be fortified or medicinal. In this case, it is important to increase the activity of the salivary glands. This will encourage frequent swallowing. Saliva begins to moisturize the mucous membranes, removing their irritation. At the same time, the swallowing reflex allows you to removeattacks. For the complete elimination of cough, its transition from dry to productive is very important. After the withdrawal of sputum, an unpleasant symptom will no longer bother a person.
If a child's frequent dry cough does not stop, it is recommended to start using mucolytic and expectorant drugs. Such drugs will reduce the viscosity of sputum, which will make it possible to begin the process of its excretion.
Anspasmodics
In the treatment of frequent dry cough in children and adults, it sometimes becomes necessary to eliminate its attacks. For this, drugs are used, the action of which has a depressing effect on the cough center. Antispasmodics will help in this case. Such drugs relieve spasm in the bronchi and help eliminate coughing. Among them are Teofedrin and Atropine. Their intake helps to relax the muscles of the bronchi and ventilation of the lungs. With the help of these funds, you can eliminate the attack in chronic pulmonary obstruction and bronchitis.
Antitussives
Sometimes bouts of an unpleasant symptom cause significant harm to the patient's body. This happens with bronchitis, dry pleurisy, whooping cough and other diseases. In such a situation, how to treat frequent dry cough? Even before the moment when sputum formation occurs, it is best to start suppressing this unpleasant reflex. Such a measure will not allow to completely weaken the patient's body.
In this case, drugs are used that will not cause addiction. They have a local effect on nerve receptors, while providing a sedativeand analgesic effect. Moreover, such drugs do not belong to the group of narcotic drugs.
Use such drugs only at the very beginning of the disease, before the appearance of sputum and, as a rule, at bedtime. Most often, Broncholitin syrup is used to eliminate such a problem. It contributes to obtaining a combined effect, providing antiseptic, mucolytic and antitussive effects. But keep in mind that cough suppressants should be discontinued if sputum is produced.
Mucolitics
If an adult or a child has a frequent dry cough, what should I do if there are signs of sputum stagnation? In this case, the patient will need to be given funds that would dilute it and promote excretion from the body - expectorant and mucolytic. Such drugs combine both of these effects with a weak anti-inflammatory. The use of mucolytics is justified in the presence of wheezing in the tops of the lungs and bronchi, as well as with hard breathing. As for the intensity of the cough, such drugs cannot reduce it. However, taking them frees the body of accumulated mucus in it, making it easier to breathe.
Means with this effect can be purchased at the pharmacy. The most effective and affordable of them are Ambrobene, Amroxol, Bromhexine and their analogues.
Good help in eliminating dry cough is provided by syrups based on plantain. These are Doctor Theiss and Herbion.
Antibiotics
Drugs of this groupare used to eliminate infections while confirming the bacterial nature of the pathology. That is, it is considered appropriate to prescribe antibiotics only in the most severe cases. If the disease is mild, then such a course of therapy may be harmful to the patient. After all, the action of antibiotics is aimed at suppressing natural immunity, which, among other things, contributes to the development of allergies.
Sedatives
Frequent dry cough provoked by stress can be eliminated only after treatment of a nervous disease. In such cases, a doctor's consultation is required. Without his appointment, taking sedatives is dangerous.
Antihistamines
If a dry cough is allergic in nature, then getting rid of an unpleasant symptom should begin immediately. The fact is that after some time, coughing fits can take on a more complicated and protracted form.
In case of allergies, doctors usually prescribe medications such as Suprastin, Zyrtec and Zodak.
Radical treatment
Sometimes, taking the drugs prescribed by the doctor is not able to alleviate the debilitating bouts of frequent dry cough. And this fact significantly worsens the quality of life of a child or an adult. In such cases, treatment is carried out with the appointment of a course of drugs, which include ethylmorphine, codeine and other substances that contribute to the inhibition of the cough center of the brain. However, it should be borne in mind that such drugs have some side effects. They influence variousbrain function and are addictive. That is why they are taken only in the most extreme cases, and even then, as a rule, only in a hospital. This happens, for example, in oncology.
Inhalations
If there is a frequent and dry cough without fever in a child or an adult, then drugs injected into the respiratory tract in the form of steam will help provide the fastest and most effective help. Carrying out inhalations allows you to moisturize the mucous membranes of the lungs and bronchi and "deliver" drugs to the focus of infection. When carrying out such procedures, the process of formation and excretion of sputum is activated in the body.
Inhalations are performed using nebulizers. In the absence of such devices, it is enough to take any container in which you need to place a hot treatment solution. The patient in this case should breathe steam, covering his head with a dense cloth.
For inhalation use:
- pharmaceutical drugs - "Lazolvan", "Berodual", "Ambrobene";
- mineral water, soda or saline, which soften and moisturize dry mucous membranes;
- herbal decoctions of sage, eucalyptus, linden, mint, chamomile, cedar or fir.
Folk remedies
You can also save a person from dry cough when using alternative medicine recipes.
Let's look at some of them:
- Gargling. To carry out this procedure, various solutions are used. The greatest effect can be obtained fromif the cause of the cough is inflammation of the larynx. Rinsing will soften the mucous membrane, moisturize it and relieve inflammation. Most suitable for these purposes is a solution prepared from soda and s alt, taken in equal amounts with the addition of a few drops of iodine. Chamomile infusion also has a fairly good effect.
- Drinking warm milk. This product, when heated, will soothe and soften the throat. When added to it a small amount of butter, either cocoa or butter, as well as one teaspoon of honey, milk will produce a softening and enveloping effect that can last for a long period of time.
- Warming up the body. In the absence of suspicion of complications from infections and at a normal or slightly elevated temperature in a patient, rubbing, massage and compresses will help to eliminate a dry cough. They are most effective in congestive processes in the lungs and in bronchitis. The simplest recipe for a compress is to make a cake of flour and honey with the addition of corn oil. Such a mixture is applied to the patient's chest, covered with parchment paper or film, insulated with a woolen cloth and fixed with a bandage.
