Constant cough and no relief!! Please help

[nirendoll]

I have a 8-10 year old beagle mix that I adopted about 2 years ago (I adopted him from the pound thats why I dont know his true age) When we got Earl, he had a cough that would come and go.  As we've had him over the years this cough has gotten progressively worse and worse.  Its gotten to the point where he now coughs almost all the time except when he sleeps.  I have taken him to the vet repeatedly over the years and have had all the tests, a chest xray and so on.  Hes been diagnosed with a collapsed trachea, congestive heart failure, lung worm, and the most recent diagnoses is asthma.  He has been treated for all of these conditions with no real improvement and again he seems to be getting worse.  I am currently occasionally giving him benadryl but all that seems to do is knock him out and doesnt really affect the coughing.  I just wanted to post this to see if anyone out there had any ideas as to what this could be? Again here are his symptoms, a dry hacking cough that comes in spells, recently almost constantly.  Occasionally he will work himself to the point of gagging.  I love this dog with all my heart and can only imagine how exhausting this must be to him so if anyone has any ideas I would greatly appreciate it.

[Yuppi]

My dog has the same problem.  A week ago I came home from work and he started coughing really strongly it sounded really dry and it was constant I've taken him to the vet and the vet diagnosed him with a respiratory infection he also has congested heart failure. The vet prescribed him liquid cortison and antibiotics - which I hate him taking I'm all for natural products. For his congestive heart failure he is taking all natural products - Hawthorne, L-Carnitine, Taurine, Echinacea, ect..plus Lasix (which is farmaceutical) to help with the congestion of the lungs and I find it really helped.  For his respiratory infection I have just ordered Respo-K and KC-Defense from Petalive.  Maybe you should try something natural.

[Jaybay]

Before I got 3 sentences into your post, I thought "congestive heart failure".  That and the collapsed trachea explains the cough all right.  I've never heard of lung worms before!  What exactly are they and how do they spread and get treated?

You might run your questions by Dr. Cheng on the Ask a Vet forum.  She also practices Chinese herbal veterinary medicine and I'm sure she'll have some treatment ideas to run by your own vet.  You'll need to include in your post exactly what medications and dosages your dog is currently taking.  Poor little guy - I hope he gets some relief soon.