adult nighttime cough

[DeerMother]

My symptoms have been the same for about a week. My allergies took a turn for the worse and were not responding to the medicine I had been on for years. I switched to zyrtec, taken at night because it causes fogginess. First I thought I had a sinus infection.  I have nasal drip. I neti. One side is clogged. My mucus is greenish and starting to show some blood when I blow after using the neti pot. I feel well enough in the day to go about my business, maybe a bit tired. I don't feel like working out. At night, my throat gets dry and I start coughing. It is like a whisper cough, not powerful, dry. I've been treating with honey and last night tried dc's borion chestal cough medicine. I find relief for just a few minutes from this. I crave cold water after these coughs. i have varying degrees of sinus pain.  I've had a bit of tunnel noise in my ears, treating that with lavender in carrier oil.

In retrospect, I should have hit it harder with my arsenal in the beginning, but I thought it was just allergies and would go away with the otc medicine. Maybe I'm taking the wrong thing still. Mold is the only thing high in my area right now. What can I do now?

[sbgrace]

Do you know your vitamin D levels (25 OH D) or do you supplement with D3 (it's usually 1000 IU per 25 pounds to maintain current levels--more to increase). I mention because I got a lot of allergy help when I normalized my levels and there is evidence vitamin D helps specifically with some mold allergies.

I'd try to concentrate on getting the allergy under control. How long have you been doing the zyrtec? My son does zyrtec, singulair, nasalcrom, and even that isn't enough sometimes. The doctor prescribed a nasal spray--I think Nasonex but we've not used it yet. He has a HEPA unit in his bedroom.

Outside of that you think the cough is from a dry throat, is that right? Do you think a humidifier might keep the throat from getting dry? Would it help to have some water to sip or a throat lozenge to suck on when it hits in the night? I just have to mention that asthma can be a cough only. My asthma is cough variant. I don't get relief unless I use an inhaler when it's triggered. Before I knew I had asthma the only thing that helped was cold water.

You didn't mention so I'm assuming you're not running a fever with the sinus, correct? The sinus sounds miserable.

[DeerMother]

Great info, thanks!

I ended up going to the doctor yesterday to get abx. Confirmed sinus infection, I couldn't stand another few weeks waiting for it to heal on its own.

Would I get my D levels checked at a dr, chiro, health food seminar? Or should I just start taking it, assuming I'm low? I doubt my insurance would cover that test.

I've been on zyrtec for less than a week. Prior to that it was claritin daily and benedryl when I needed a boost. My kids both have allergies and I used their spray last week for some minor relief.

I did know asthma could be cough variant. I have long suspected some kind of asthma as I occasionally have panic attack style breathing, meaning I can only get air in the top 1/3 of my lungs (as far as the top of my heart). Usually this is triggered by activity, running. hiking up hills. It doesn't happen every time but when I'm having allergy troubles anyway. This doesn't happen often, but can last several minutes. Also interesting that you say cold water is the only thing that will help yours. I've been getting up to add ice to my water, craving it cold. I have tried sucking on cough drops, I just don't like doing it if I'm trying to go back to sleep.

[sbgrace]

You know it really sounds like you need an inhaler. I think you're describing asthma attacks at least with exercise/allergy times. It may well be that the illness and/or allergies triggered it now too. It's really common for asthma to flare at night. My asthma is entirely with illness. I only get attacks at night and they are always coughs. i would drink cold water to help. It took me a long time to realize it was asthma because my son wheezes and I didn't notice a wheeze in myself. It could be that sinus though too triggering the cough of course. I hope the antibiotics help very quickly for you. Take good probiotics a few hours after each dose if you can! Culturelle is a really good probiotic and widely available. If you can get Florastor it's the one probiotic antibiotics can't kill so it's terrific for this too.

On the vitamin D. If your doctor orders a lab and your insurance covers labs of any sort this is a typical lab so I'd think they would cover it. It's a 25(OH)D level specifically. Some doctors order the wrong test. The vitamin D council has excellent information on testing and they even have a company linked that you can order an at home kit if you wanted to go that direction instead of via doctor. That said if you're not supplementing you're surely low. I'd tend to supplement heavily for several months and then test. Healthy adults can safely take up to 10,000 IU of D3 per day no matter their current vitamin D levels. So you could do 10,000 IU 6 days a week...that would keep you under the max regardless of existing level but give you a good chance to build up levels if you are low and I'd put money on you're being low.

I so hope you're better soon.

[DeerMother]

Thanks so much. Appreciate your time.