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Unfortunately, I have caught the sickness that has been floating around campus. At least half
my floor already has it and the constant coughing in classes assures me that many more people on campus are sick. Starting as just a sore throat, I have developed a very heavy cough that is hard to avoid. Dayquil is helpful and the best solution has been to constantly sip water. Sipping the water keeps my throat from getting dry, which seems to be what causes the coughing. Problem is, I can only drink so much water at a time and the coughing eventually ensues. But this makes me wonder… Is there a correlation when someone is sick between coughing and the throat being dry? and how does coughing effect, if it does at all, a sickness?
Why do we cough?
image via kevinmd.com
Having to cough is probably one of the most annoying things there is, especially in class when you know your loud projections of infected air are distracting everyone in the room. Before this, I had no clue why we cough and usually tried to avoid doing it. This may not be the best thing to do because, according to WebMD, coughing happens to help the body get rid of foreign items such as dirt and mucus. This is among other things that can cause a person to continually cough. Even though coughing is generally intended to remove foreign things from the airways, it can also have negative consequences. A dry cough, among other types of coughing, irritates the lungs. When an individuals lungs become irritated, they cough even more. This creates a cycle where the coughing doesn’t stop and could get worse and worse as the lungs become more irritated. This “dry cough” might be an explanation to why the water helps to soothe the coughing.
Water..?
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If any of you have had this dry cough before, you may know that it can lead your throat to
become extremely sore. When you cough for other reasons, it is often because there is something in your throat such as foreign objects or mucus. But if there is nothing in your throat, the air is just pressing along the walls of your throat, irritating it even more. According to eMedicineHealth, as water goes down the throat, it breaks up the mucus that is sitting in the passageway. Since a cough is meant to remove things from the throat…. MUCUS… and the water breaks up that mucus. If the water breaks up that mucus, then you have to cough less. Therefore, water serves a similar purpose as coughing, or at least just assists the coughing. The water breaking up the mucus may help it to be removed from your throat when you cough, but, I often swallow after coughing and I feel like the mucus goes right back into my throat. So I believe the water serves the purpose of lubricating your throat so that the cough is not completely dry.
On a good note, I am starting to feel better- I started this blog 2 days ago. Using a mixture of fluids, sleep, cough drops, DayQuil, NightQuil, Ibuprofen, salt water, and nasal spray, the sickness seems to be almost over. While I do not know if this was the best combination of things, it did the job.
Feel free to comment how you have dealt with your sickness below.
Sources:
http://www.webmd.com/cold-and-flu/overview?page=2#1
http://www.emedicinehealth.com/relieving_a_cough-health/article_em.htm
I’m currently fighting a cold. This blog post is summarizing my past week. In every lecture hall I go to, there are kids coughing. Between my coughing and their coughing, I can’t even hear the teacher. Drinking water for me has helped a little. However, it hasn’t made a huge difference. All the kids on my floor are sick and that probably is not going to change for a little bit. I think that people live so close to one another that it is easier to catch a cold. Also, it spreads much faster. Here is an interesting article about sickness at Colleges. Click here to see the link.
I have also caught the Penn State Plague. Knowing that drinking a little more water could help combat it gave me another way to not feel like death. I’ve been using cough drops and tylenol to combat it so far. Also, fruity candy you can suck on (i.e. jolly ranchers or lollipops) helps with your throat hurting a little bit less. I also know that you should stay away from dairy if you have a cough; it makes it much worse.
Interesting blog post! I too have been hearing the coughing throughout lecture halls. Feel better by the way! I usually do the same routine of drinking fluids and dayquil/nyquil as you, but I make sure to get extra vitamin C. I also make sure I’m eating enough fruits and vegetables, which relates back to my extra vitamin C intake in that I feel like I want to be eating the best possible diet so that I’ll get better as soon as possible. I don’t want to prolong it in any way so I try to leave nothing out in helping my immune system fight the bacteria. Here is a link to a MayoClinic article saying what does and doesn’t work to help get over a cold. Although my recommendation of vitamin C isn’t necessarily a way to get over it, it says it can’t hurt to get a packet of Emergen-C in your water when you feel the symptoms starting.
This post makes me wonder what exactly causes the body, affected by a virus, to create all that buildup of mucus in the throat anyway, other than it just being a symptom of the common cold. It would definitely be something both gross and interesting to look into.
Interesting blog post! I too have been hearing the coughing throughout lecture halls. Feel better by the way! I usually do the same routine of drinking fluids and dayquil/nyquil as you, but I make sure to get extra vitamin C and make sure I’m eating enough fruits and vegetables. Here is a link to a
MayoClinic article saying what does and doesn’t work to help get over a cold. Although my recommendation of vitamin C isn’t necessarily a way to get over it, it says it can’t hurt to get a packet of Emergen-C in your water when you feel the symptoms starting.