I am :confused:

I am 28 yrs old. I had this now for over 15 years the max. The doctors say its asthma. I know it isnt!

I cough everyday..maybe every hour. Its a violent cough and even I get worried.

1. I cough when I speak to people / on the phone. Then I start retching...ITS NOT A COLD COUGH.... SOUNDS LIKE A SMOKERS COUGH BUT WORST (I AM NON SMOKER / DO NOT DRINK ALCOHOL). :rolleyes:
2. It leads to vomit / your throat is so dry you have nothing left but you still vomit. :dizzy:
3. You retch aswell. LIke vomit sound but no vomit.
4. My symptons worst if I get hot / cold, in a dusty environment, smoky environment.
5. Its cough, cough.... sometimes so loud I get worried and so does my family and friends....sometimes water doesnt help!!
6. The inhalers do not work. :mad:

Doctors given me inhalers. I keep telling them its not working so they do blood tests and find nothing. I ask for a throat xray / checkup and they havent done that.

DOCTORS IGNORE ME.... say its ASTHMA. I asked people with asthma what their symptons are and they say wheezing / shortness in breath (NO COUGH).

Any doctors out there - can you help? do you have these symptoms?

I taken preventer and reliever inhalers - doesnt work. Its been 15 years. I work as a Police Officer and these coughs are so embarrasing esp when I vomit. I am now pregnant and I dont wont this!

PLEASE PLEASE HELP..... I HOPE THERE IS A CURE....

Asthma and gerd can go side by side. I have asthma and gerd and cough. My main symptom for gerd was vomiting, but not because of coughing, just out of the blue puke.

Hello I am sorry to hear you are under the weather.
I am 18 weeks pregnant and in the last three weeks i have had a terrible cough, I shake I am coughing so hard. My throat closes and I vomit, mostly water due to the large amounts I am drinking to combat the dryness. I have been given a cough syrup by the doctor suitable for pregnant women and some anti-biotics. The doctor that checked me said it wasn't my asthma as my chest was not tight or wheezzy I must have a throat infection. The things I take don't help any. I am worse at night and I am not getting a bit worried about going to sleep as I wake up not being able to breath. I am 30. My nephew has the same and is projectile vomiting, he is 4. So it is nothing to do with the pregnancy. I pulled my stomac muscculs coughing so hard last week that I couldn't walk. I am never normally ill and lead a very healthy life style. I feel people think I am making it up. (Apart from the people in the bank, when I was sick on the floor yesterday). I am just hoping it will sort it's self out sooner rather than later.
Good luck with your baby and I hoped I have helped you to feel you are not alone. Georgina.

JOT,

You have come to the right place. Chronic cough is frequently caused by acid refluxing into the throat, and unfortunately, most doctors have never heard of this condition, which is called layngopharyngeal reflux (LPR). It can strike at any age, and is thought to be caused by a weakened upper esophogeal spinchter muscle (though researchers are currently investigating the possibibility that the larynx itself begins producing acid by mistake).

When the acid (super strong HCl, pH of 2) gets into the throat, it damages the soft tissues that have no natural protection against acid. A typical response is to constantly cough (or throat clear) to move the acid off the larynx.

Most LPR patients have 1 or more of the following symptoms: chronic cough (like you), chornic throat clearing, sensation of something stuck in the throat/"lump" in the throat. Some people also develop asthma-like symptoms that don't respond to asthma treatments. This happens because when the acid gets into the throat, it gets accidentally aspirated back down the other pipe - the windpipe and into the lungs, damaging the lung tissue.

But it's treatable, and despite what you read on this board, it does not require any tests at all to make a diagnosis. Instead, your doctor should go ahead and prescribe you the medication used to treat the condition. If you respond (improvement after about 30 days, though it can be earlier), it is sufficient to be considered a diangosis in itself. However, since you have had this condition for 15 years, they should schedule you for an endoscopy anyway - which is usually done under sedation, in which the doctor uses a scope to check the condition of your esophogous - looking for damage. However, the same medications that you will be on for LPR are used to treat a damaged esophogous, so you should absolutely go and start the medications now!

The medications are called Proton-Pump Inhibitors (PPIs) and they simply reduce the amount of acid your stomach produces. The less acid your stomach produces, the less that can escape and irritate your throat. Alas, it only treats the symptoms of the disease and not the cause, but it's the best we've got and can be very very effective.

Now this is the critical part - whatever PPI you choose to take, you MUST MUST MUST take 2 doses per day! Standard treatment for LPR is 2 doses, and most doctors do not know this, because they've learned that standard treatment for its sister condition, hearburn/GERD is 1 PPI dose per day. So it is probably going to be up to you to correct them if they are incorrect. If they resist, simply direct them to the U.S. government's pubmed database (http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/) where they can find citation after citation that confirms LPR must be treated with 2 doses of a PPI per day.
You can even search it yourself for "LPR" or "laryngeal reflux" or "laryngopharyngeal reflux" and pull up dozens of citations that describe the latest research and treatment.

In the U.S.A., we have 5 PPIs to choose from and they might have different names in your country. By prescription, we have Nexium, Aciphex, Prevacid and Protonix. Nexium is the latest drug on the market (2001) and though usually the most expensive here, is often the one that works when the others fail. It has a significantly different structure that my doctor says "allows more people to significantly metabolize it better". I've been on 2 doses of it per day for 4 years.

We also have an over-the-counter PPI (we can buy it without a prescription) called Prilosec. It used to be available by prescription, but went OTC when it lost its patent. Prilosec was the first PPI to ever be produced. It's maker, Astrazeneca, followed it up with Nexium in 2001. However, from reading the posts on this board over the last year, it seems that most people with LPR do not greatly benefit from Prilosec - it seems to be a better treatment for GERD. There are people with LPR on it - and seems mostly because it's a cheaper drug, but they aren't the ones I'm seeing who have achieved a good recovery, in general.

When you begin taking your PPIs, you need to consider the timing of your doses. Some people take them together first thing in the morning (like me) and many others take 1 dose in the morning and the other dose in the evening (because PPIs typically wear off after about 17 hours). You simply need to expermiment to find out what works best for you. My morning version works for me because I am a classic daytime refluxer - one of the hallmarks of LPR is the tendancy for a LPR patient to reflux and have symptoms mostly during the daytime when they are upright. As soon as I lie down, I stop coughing (no reflux when I am prone). This is the opposite of someone with GERD - who typically refluxes when lying down at night.
So for me, I need the double dose of my Nexium first thing in the morning when I wake up. If I stay up late I begin to feel it wear off, but as soon as I hop into bed, any breakthrough symptoms go away until I wake up in the morning.

And finally, you may need to experiment with which PPI you take. There are too many instances on this board where people have tried 4 or 5 of the PPIs before settling on the one that works for them. Not every PPI will likely work the same for you.

And since you haven't been treated before, it may take about 30 days for you to notice improvement after beginning the PPI regimen, so hang in there and keep going - because given time, these medications usually work! Sometimes improvement comes faster, but you've probably developed a lot of erosions in your throat over time, and just like a cut or scrape on your skin, those erosions will need a few weeks of being acid-free to heal!

I hope you get better - and please note that the PPIs may have different names in the U.K. I just dont' know what they are.

A few links to pubmed.gov citations that will get you started in the right direction (the search term was "larygopharyngeal reflux":


http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=16728890&query_hl=6&itool=pubmed_docsum


http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=16728886&query_hl=6&itool=pubmed_docsum


http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=16598989&query_hl=6&itool=pubmed_docsum

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=pubmed&dopt=Abstract&list_uids=16481828&query_hl=6&itool=pubmed_DocSum

:bouncing:
hey - thank you for all your tips and advice.

I went to the hospital today - printed this forum and a very useful website information about coughs on http://www.issc.info/cough.html - this link is about coughs! Very useful!

This link and the forum persuaded the doctors that it could be Reflux / chronic cough.

The bad bits - they want me to try PPI - Proton Pump Inhibitors (high dose) but said they will not prescribe it as I am 4 months pregnant and the baby is still growing. They said to come back to the hospital in my 6 /7 months and they will prescribe it.

I HOPE THIS WORKS.... AFTER 10 + YEARS

The doctor has prescribed me - Gaviscon (www.Gaviscon.co.uk)!

Im getting there - slowly but surely! It was like I was the doctor telling them about the Reflux Cough....

Pray it works :blob_fire

Thank You x