Lisinopril cough?

[snowy owl]

I was wondering if someone could describe what a lisinopril cough is like.

Over the last few days, my son had developed a cough, it started out like he had a little tickle in his throat, but since yesterday, he's been taking coughing fits for what seems like a minute at a time. He hasn't been coughing once he has fallen asleep though. The family doctor thinks it could be caused by the meds, but he doesn't see his pediatrician until next week (he's 13). He takes 15 mg/ once a day of lisinopril, he also takes cozaar and nifedipine PA.

Does a lisinopril cause a cough even while sleeping? He just had blood work done last week, and everything came back OK.

Thanks for any help you can give.

[violet312s]

What you're describing sounds like the ACE Inhibitor cough. I had to quit Altace for the same reason. The key part of the cough is that it is unproductive - not phlemy. It's also a gag cough which makes the fits uncontrollable. Yes, starts with a tickle in the throat and then leads to the coughing fit. I never had them while sleeping.

It's not harmful, just extremely annoying and is the main reason why people quit ACE Inhibitors. So you can wait until you see the pediatrician next week for an official diagnosis.

The fortunate thing is that there are a similar category of drugs called ARBs that do the same thing but do not have cough as a side effect. Unfortunately they aren't as effective as the ACE Inhibitor.

Once he stops the ACE Inhibitor the cough will go away over a period of days or a week or two. Mine was pretty much gone after 3 weeks.

[Lenin]

I concur with Violet, it is the ACE cough. Once it gets going there's nothing one can do except to get off the drug class. If one causes it is almost a dead cert that any of the ACE inhibitors will. It starts with an unbearable tickle that is impossible to ignore. For me, the best imagery was that it felt like a thread of Brillo was stuck in a bronchial tube...either slightly to the left or right of center...it varied.

I'm not sure if one coughs while asleep but I can attest to the fact that the cough very often hit at bedtime and did a good job of keeping of KEEPING me awake.

Your son will be fine a couple days after stopping the lisinopril. I don't think there's even reason to torture him by waiting for the doctor's ok...just have him stop taking the drug. When he sees the pediatrician, he can have his meds adjusted for something else.

What's causing his high blood pressure at such a young age? Any reason he's not taking a diuretic?

[snowy owl]

Thank you both, Violet and Lenin for your help.

Lenin, my son's high blood pressure is caused by his arteries narrowing. It started out with his renal arteries, now his aorta is narrowed the whole length to about 1cm, as well as the branches off the aorta to the other organs. These narrowings are caused by NF.

The nephrologist is trying to keep him on vasculators to buy them time-one vascular surgeon wants to wait until my son stops growing before doing any type of surgery, if at all possible. He is supposed to have another angiogram or possibly a CTA in September or October (no definite date yet).