Constant nausea, persistant cough

eDeal · 05-22-2006, 05:26 AM

I have had constant nausea for about 7 months to varying degrees. Mostly it is barely present, but occassionally, I have bouts where I feel like I have to run to the bathroom.

It seems to be related to a cough that I have also had over the same time period. When the cough is worse, the nausea is usually worse, but they are not always correlated. The cough is strange because people have told me it sounds like I am a smoker, but I have never smoked in my life.

The nausea can be present any time of the day, but more often it is worse in the mornings. It also occurrs whether my stomach is full or empty.

Anyway, I have been to the doctor about it, but the only thing he could come up with was to prescribe anti-nausea medication, which I declined. I would rather figure out the cause.

If anyone has any ideas, let me know.

MAD MAZ · 05-22-2006, 06:39 AM

HI eDeal I have also been having nausea for 4 months now, I do not have a cough, I have been having real bad pains in and arond my stomach, pain near my right rib, back pain I am on meds for the nausea as I could not take anymore of it like you I didnt what to take any meds but if you keep going to the doctors just dont give in, If I was you I would think about taking them , but like I say dont give up tryiny to get to thr bottom of it. Have you had a chest xray take care ...Mandy

eDeal · 05-22-2006, 07:28 AM

I have no pain. It is just pure nausea. The cough seems to come from a tickle in my air passages, and often times produces a little phlegm.

I did have a chest x-ray, as well as a pulmonary functon test, and both care back normal. The cough and nausea started with a bad cold that I had following a case of the flu that I contracted over thanksgiving weekend.

The cold turned into a spasmatic cough with very quick bursts of 5-6 coughs that would leave me breathless and wanting to vomit. This tapered off over the course of a month or so, but the nausea and cough never completely faded. I can recreated the spasmatic cough by completely exhaling, then I will cough until I nearly faint.

Anyway, I am not terribly concerned because things don't seem to be getting worse, but I wonder if it could be a sign of another condition.

aswander · 05-22-2006, 01:36 PM

Long-term chronic cough can be a symptom of acid reflux disease. You have probably heard of the form called GERD, which causes awful hearburn. You probably have not heard of the form called LPR (laryngeal pharyngeal reflux) which causes chronic cough. With LPR, the acid from your stomach somehow gets up your esophgous, leaves your esophogous and gets into your throat, damaging the sensitive tissues, and causing chronic cough. While doctors don't exactly know why LPR doesn't cause heartburn, they think it may be less acid getting into the esophogous, but even the littlest amount of acid that gets into your throat causes massive problems. The acid in your stomach has a pH of 1 - that's really really strong acid. Compare that to the acid in your table vinegar - which has a pH of 3. the pH scale is logarithmic, so stomach acid is like, 100 times stronger than the acid level in table vinegar. So it really hurts your throat.

To get a diagnosis, you need to visit an ENT and ask the doctor to scope you and look for damage in your throat. Treatment for LPR is 2 doses of a PPI per day. PPIs include Nexium, Aciphex, Prevacid and Protonix, all by prescription. Skip the Prilosec OTC - it doesn't work for LPR.

Most doctors don't know that LPR must be treated with 2 doses a day so it's usually up to the patient to inform the doctor. There is tons of anecdotal evidence on the GERD board (where the LPR people post).

eDeal · 05-26-2006, 12:20 PM

It does not seem to fit the symptoms of GERD or LPR. I pretty much never have trouble with a sore throat, decaying teeth, throat clearing and the like. I also don't have that bitter acid taste that I am familiar with because of vomitting with the nausea (usually I just feel like I am going to vomit, but occassionally I do, and when I do I can feel the acid).

The cough gets worse when I breath cold air, strong fumes (like from alcohol based mouth washes), and does not seem to originate from my throat.

I have looked into LPR in the past, but it does not seem to apply in my case. I guess what I am looking for is OTHER possibilities. After getting a test done and being billed $544 for a pulmonary function test when my doctor thought it could be asthma, I am just trying to narrow things down so that I don't go bankrupt finguring this out.