Persisant cough

[yehudi]

I have a history of acid reflux disease. I am a 57 yr old woman.  I also have had trouble with nausea after I eat.  I take over the counter renitadine and lately have to double up on it.  Now I have developed a chronic cough for the last 2 mos.  It used to happen only at night when I lay down but now it happens during the day.  I spray my throat with chloraseptic as it has lidocaine in it.  The last week I woke up with terrible throat pain and swelling in my lymph notes at the sides of my throat.  I couldn't talk at all for 2 days and that made it go away.  But the cough is still there.   I am really getting concerned.  I never had cough problems and I have always drunk a lot of milk and eat dairy products with little or no interference.  So I don't think dairy is doing this but not sure since I am getting older and things change with age right?  Anyway, I am thinking of going to the clinic for a throat culture.   Will that be enough to find out the problem.  I don't have health insurance. Can mucus cause this much trouble?

[mayahp]

Hello
My mother has chronic acid reflux and she has found that chewing a handful of almonds. You need to chew on them util they are a mush in your mouth. It may seem like an easy cure, one many doctors will not believe it but it works Better than any drugs they have tried. Celery also helps but almonds help even more

[GhostOf1901]

The first thing to consider to whether the acid reflux has gotten worse. Nausea, throat pain, coughing, increased mucus... these are all symptoms of LPRD and GERD (with nausea being a symptom of possible delayed gastric emptying/dyspepsia). You can see abut a throat culture, but based on your description here, I don't know if that'll be enough to find the problem.

Get yourself to a gastroenterologist and ask for an EGD. Provided everything is OK and there's nothing huge, the doc may want to start you on acid suppresants.

In the meantime, if you can't get an appointment any time within the next few weeks, try taking some over the counter Pepcid or Zantac. If those don't start to work within 4 days,  then try over the counter Omeprazole (a stronger class of drug, and can be take up to 2x/day@20mg, if needed; these may take a few days to start working). These are safe to take along milder antacids like Gaviscon or TUMS, just don't take them within an hour of each other.

You may also want to try taking something called Iberogast. If your issue really is dyspepsia then this may help it some. You can get it through Amazon.

But don't use any of this as a substitute for a doc, get yourself to one as soon as you can.

Good luck.