Cronic Cough and Unusual Abdominal Symptoms

[KaitouDaiki]

Greetings. I am a 23 year-old male in otherwise good health.  About 4 weeks ago, I overdosed on alcohol at a tailgate party and ended up passing out and being taken to a hospital.  I woke up about 6 hours after passing out and was discharged being told that I was fine.  Over the next couple of days, I noticed that my breathing had become kind of strange.  I did not feel like I was gasping for air, but I felt sort of like a trickling sensation inside my lungs, almost like there was congestion but nothing painful.  About a week later (8 days after the drinking incident), I developed a dry cough.  This would manifest itself sometimes as a full cough but mostly just as an urge to cough when I breathed in and out, but there was never any sputum.  If I really hacked or tried to cough something up, then I would occasionally spit out normal clear spit.  This cough has been going on now for about 2 and 1/2 weeks.  When I first felt breathing sensations, I went into my GP and told him my complaints, including some weird trickling sensations that I could feel around my abdomen.  He decided to do a chest x-ray to rule out any cracked ribs, and the chest x-ray came back fine with clear lungs.  He also performed intermediate blood work, which also did not return any abnormalities.  I have not been back to see him about this cough yet, but it is very annoying, and has me somewhat worried about things like tuberculosis.  I suppose that the lack of sputum would rule that out, though.  I have never had asthma nor allergies to speak of, but I recognize that it is spring and the height of grass pollen season.  When I was at the tailgate drinking, I took a few puffs on a cigar, and may have inhaled more deeply than I should have, but I am not a smoker, and had never smoked cigars before.  Thank you for any input you might be able to give.

[David S. Wilson, MD, FCCP]

Your symptoms are actually not uncommon after such an event.  You very likely aspirated oropharyngeal contents and the subsequent airway injury from acidic material heals slowly ...cough persists for some time..even several months.  If it persists or worsens you should see a pulmonary MD to consider other causes such as asthma,reflux esophagitis, or sinusitis

[KaitouDaiki]

Also, when I am leaning against my left or right rib cage, I feel as though my lungs are crinkling up inside or perhaps it's crepitus?  I'm a little vague on whether crepitus is a sound or a sensation as well.

[KaitouDaiki]

One more thing I should note: about 6 weeks ago, I had some splitting pains around my sternum and my shoulder blade that I only felt upon movement.  I had been doing some pretty intense weightlifting at the gym for a few weeks, and so when I described this to my doctor, he thought it was just costochondritis.  I don't know if this could be related to the cough.