Chronic or dry cough during a prolonged illness exhausts the body. Especially from him suffer small children who do not understand what is happening to them. Parents often do not know how to treat a cough.
Succumbing to emotions, they do not turn to a specialist and begin to struggle with a cough on their own, and not with the cause that caused it. As a result, the baby only gets worse, the disease progresses. To avoid this, you need to know what function the cough performs and what may be the reasons for its appearance. This knowledge will help to understand how and how to treat cough in a child of 2 years and younger, as well as in an adult.
Functions and Physiology
In fact, cough performs a very useful function for the body. Being a protective reflex, it helps to clear the respiratory tract of sputum, dangerous microorganisms, foreign bodies, dust particles. Sputum is constantly secreted by the trachea and bronchi, protecting the respiratory system from external threats. During inflammation of the airways, the body produces an increased amount of mucus, which destroys pathogenic bacteria.
It would seem that coughing significantly complicates a person’s life, but it helps the patient to breathe: without this reflex, sputum accumulating in the lungs and bronchi would literally choke the patient. The physiology of cough is as follows. The respiratory system has very sensitive receptors that, when irritated by a foreign body or harmful microorganisms, cause a sharp reflex contraction of the throat muscles. Air is expelled powerfully through the trachea, and a person coughs or sneezes. But coughing causes not only inflammation of the respiratory tract, but also other causes.
Causes
Before treating a monthly cough, you need to establish its cause. Sometimes you can diagnose it yourself, when the source of coughing is obvious. It can be a severe cold, smoking, or a piece of food caught in the respiratory tract. However, it is often difficult to establish a diagnosis without a doctor and a thorough examination, because coughing becomes a concomitant symptom of such diseases and external factors:
- whooping cough, tuberculosis, emphysema, cancerous tumors;
- allergies
- asthma;
- cardiovascular failure;
- dust, smoke, other atmospheric pollution;
- reaction to medication;
- stress, excitement, mental disorders;
- flu, acute respiratory infections.
Types of cough
There is a certain classification of cough. However, it may be incomprehensible to people far from medicine. For a person who wants to know how to treat a cough at home for an adult or a child, a simplified division of it into types according to three most important signs is suitable:
- by productivity - unproductive (dry without sputum) and productive (wet with intensive expectoration of sputum, usually accompanied by a runny nose);
- by duration - chronic cough (more than three weeks) or acute (up to three weeks);
- by nature - coughing, constant, paroxysmal.
Diagnostics
Often people suffer a disease on their feet and refuse to take sick leave so as not to interrupt work and other matters. They believe that constant coughing is a trifle that does not deserve the attention of a doctor. As a result, patients are treated unsystematically. But this carelessness can turn into a disaster. Cough is a marker that, as a rule, indicates the presence of an inflammatory process. Without treatment, it can develop into a chronic ailment.
Timely measures not only facilitate the healing process, but also save the patient from excessive cash expenses. For this reason, before treating a cough, you need to find out what caused it. And a person unaware of medicine will not be able to answer this question precisely, because he lacks knowledge and skills.
An experienced doctor only by the sound of a cough determines what disease provokes him. But in the arsenal of a specialist there are many tools to diagnose an ailment. Based on the examination, the doctor decides how to treat the cough. The main diagnostic methods include:
- interrogation and examination of the patient;
- sowing microflora of sputum and a variety of blood tests;
- bronchoscopy;
- bronchography;
- radiography;
- lung biopsy.
The main methods of treatment
If the cough does not go away for a long time, how to treat this ailment? The method depends on the disease and the age of the patient. After all, you can not prescribe the same drugs to an adult and a baby. How to treat a cough in a child at 2 years of age, determines the specialist. But even if the reason is obvious, for example, at the first signs of acute respiratory infections, do not self-medicate - this can lead to complications.
But if the patient still wants to be treated at home in order to minimize the risk, it is better to get knowledge before treatment: read articles from reliable sources, watch a video in which experts will tell how and how to treat a cough. Komarovsky, Malysheva and other presenters of medical talk shows will help to avoid common mistakes. In particular, Komarovsky strongly recommends not using cough suppressants without a doctor’s prescription. Herbal expectorants can be used for bronchitis and acute respiratory infections.
You can highlight the main ways how to treat a cough at home quickly and effectively.
- Systemic antibiotics. They are prescribed only by decision of the doctor when other methods of treating the disease do not work. In no case should the patient be treated with antibiotics on his own. With a small dosage, the drug will not help and will only harm the body. Even modern drugs have a number of side effects on the liver, digestive system and other organs. If the dosage is excessive, antibiotics will eliminate the disease and its cough, but will cause other diseases.
- Antitussive drugs that suppress the work of the cough center. Thanks to advertising, these drugs are primarily remembered when the question arises of how to treat a dry cough at home. The mechanism of action of the drug is quite simple. The drug simply turns off the reflex with the help of its constituent substances, for example codeine. Antitussive drugs should also be taken on the recommendation of a specialist, moreover, they cannot be bought without a prescription. Firstly, they are addictive. Secondly, far from always they can cure a disease. In particular, such drugs are harmful with a wet cough, which helps the body actively get rid of sputum.
- Medicines with bronchodilator, thinning, expectorant and anti-inflammatory effects. Available in the form of potions, tablets and aerosols.
- Gargle sore throat with warm solutions of furatsilina, salt or soda. This method is often underestimated, considering it an ineffective procedure. In fact, it helps to restore the mucous membrane damaged by a constant cough, and also productively destroys pathogenic bacteria.
- Inhalation. Particularly effective inhalations, which are carried out with a nebulizer. Thanks to him, the medicine penetrates deeply into the bronchi and lungs, while not burning the already injured mucous membrane.
- Rubbing, massages and compresses. These procedures are often performed for diseases of children aged 1 year. Many parents do not know how to treat a cough in such babies, because most medicines are contraindicated for them. The solution will be warming rubbing with special ointments, massages of the chest and back, warming compresses: they activate the separation of sputum and bring relief to the child.
- Folk remedies. A popular and effective recipe is warm milk with honey. In a glass of warm (not hot) milk, dissolve 1-2 tsp. honey and a pinch of soda. You can take this medicine during the day. There are many other recipes for treating cough with folk remedies, but it is better to consult with your doctor first.
What cough should be treated by a doctor?
First of all, you can not engage in self-treatment of children. A young child has a weak, unstable immunity. Careless parents due to lack of knowledge can treat the baby incorrectly, which often leads to serious complications. Therefore, only a pediatrician should determine how to treat a cough in 3 years or less. Moreover, even a beginning, mild cough in children is a cause for concern.
For adults, dry cough is dangerous, which lasts more than three weeks. It is characteristic of such serious diseases as chronic bronchitis, gastroesophageal reflux, cancer, bronchial asthma, heart failure. Choking coughing episodes, which are accompanied by fever, chest pain, shortness of breath, blood clots and pus in the sputum - all these are also alarming symptoms.
The patient should immediately consult a doctor and not expect that the disease will recede itself. Only a professional physician can say how to treat cough and snot in this case. Examination and diagnosis will help determine the disease and prescribe effective treatment.
What cough can be treated at home?
Mild respiratory infections, colds at the initial stage, smoker's cough or sneezing and cough accompanying seasonal allergies can be treated at home. Allergy sufferers get used to seasonal cough over the years and know how to guard against an allergen and alleviate the symptoms of the disease. Smokers also get used to living with constant coughing, which does not depend on the time of year and is eliminated only by quitting smoking.
There are many ways to cure a cough caused by a cold at home. Best of all, they act in an integrated manner. But you always need to remember the main principle: you need to treat the disease, and coughing is just one of its symptoms that can be alleviated.
General tips
Regardless of the nature of the cough, it irritates the airways. There are several universal tips that will make life easier for a coughing person and speed up his recovery.
- Sufficient room humidity. Due to poor ventilation and intensive operation of the heating system in the apartments in winter the air is very dry. It is saturated with dust, which settles on the mucous membrane of the throat and can cause coughing even in a healthy person. Humidify the air better with special devices designed for this. But if they are not, then you can put a container of water in the room. Also periodically need to do wet cleaning.
- A large amount of warm drink. Excessive fluid intake dilutes sputum and makes it easier to expectorate. It can be tea, herbal tea, milk with honey or soda, plain or mineral water. The main thing is that the liquid is not cold or too hot.
- Lollipops. They are especially effective in inflammatory processes of the upper respiratory tract. It can be ordinary sweets and cough lozenges, which increase the release of saliva, have an anti-inflammatory effect and reduce perspiration. And, of course, children really like them.
- Rinse with warm saline. You need to dilute a spoonful of table salt in a glass of water. The tool helps to alleviate pain and relieve irritation of the mucous membrane of the throat.
- To give up smoking. If the smoker is not able to completely abandon the addiction, then for the sake of his own good, he should at least during treatment stop breathing caustic smoke.
- Avoidance of household chemicals, air pollution and other irritating airways.
How to treat dry cough at home
With a dry cough, sputum does not stand out, and a person can cough for weeks. Moreover, sometimes the disease proceeds without other symptoms - without nasal congestion, without enlarged lymph nodes, without temperature. How to treat an adult cough in such cases? The main task is to make the cough moist so that sputum removal begins.
With a strong, exhausting cough, I want to take a cough suppressant. However, this should be done only in extreme cases and preferably after consultation with a specialist. First you need to try to overcome a dry cough with the combined effect of mucolytics, sputum thinning, expectorant drugs and bronchodilators.
At the same time, compresses, inhalations, rubbing should be done. You can treat cough with folk remedies: drink milk with soda, honey infused with radish, onion broth, tea with raspberry jam, herbal infusions of sage, thyme, marshmallow root, linden, anise. It is also important to keep your legs, chest and throat warm. Even if the room is warm, it is still better to wear a sweater and warm socks, wrap a throat with a scarf.
But there are times when days go by and a dry cough does not go away. How to treat yourself in such a situation? Sometimes patients decide to take antibiotics. But this is a dangerous method. A prolonged cough may be a symptom of a disease that only an examination will reveal. Then antibiotics will not only not help, but they will harm an already sick body.
Moist cough
How to treat a wet cough without fever? The main task in the treatment of wet cough is to facilitate and intensify sputum discharge. It is necessary to help the body fight the disease, so do not use antitussive drugs that suppress the cough reflex. In this case, intensively released sputum will be poorly excreted from the body and accumulate in the lungs and bronchi, which will lead to prolongation of the disease and complications.
Mucolytics and expectorants improve sputum removal. It is advisable to use them in combination with inhalations and compresses. And, of course, you can treat cough with folk remedies.
As a rule, with complex treatment, a wet cough softens quickly. The patient, having prematurely felt healthy, begins to lead a normal life: he moves a lot, goes to work, and is often in the cold. It is not surprising that with this attitude, the painful symptoms do not completely disappear. It is better to treat the disease thoroughly than to suffer from complications for a long time.
Cough in children
Helping a baby is much more difficult than treating an adult cough. The illness does not go away for weeks - urgent need to take action. The child has a weak and vulnerable organism. Even a little draft is enough for the baby to cough. But a cold is just one of many causes of coughing in children; it can be a sign of a beginning sore throat, pneumonia, tracheitis.
The cough cannot be ignored, but, on the other hand, it is dangerous to treat the child on his own. Many procedures and medications that help an adult are not suitable for children. For example, a sick child should not be inhaled with hot steam: he is able to severely burn the delicate mucous membrane and worsen the condition. This also applies to hot drink.
Some medications can cause severe allergies in a child. Without prescribing, children should in no case be taken antibiotics, brancholytics, antitussives, mucolytics. Therefore, the best solution is to consult a pediatrician as soon as possible. A timely examination will reduce the risk of complications, will quickly identify the cause of the cough that has appeared. The doctor will prescribe the optimal treatment program.
To alleviate the discomfort in the baby, you can do the most safe and gentle procedures: massages and rubbing the chest and back, compresses, inhalation with non-hot steam using a nebulizer. But the choice of the sprayed agent should remain with the experienced physician, because some mixtures lead to complications.
You can treat cough in children with folk remedies. For example, give the baby tea from the leaves of currants or rose hips: it has an anti-inflammatory effect and strengthens the immune system. However, you need to be very careful about decoctions, some herbs cause Quincke's edema in children.
At all times, warm milk with honey was used as a universal folk medicine. If there is a suspicion that honey will cause an allergy, then it is replaced with a piece of butter. This folk remedy can be made more effective by adding onions to it. First, onion is boiled in milk, and then honey is added. The resulting broth enhances immunity and relieves inflammation, it is necessary to give the child periodically one spoon each.
Prevention
There are a number of simple but effective preventative measures that reduce the likelihood of diseases in general and cough in particular. They are suitable for adults and children and are part of a healthy lifestyle.
- Increased immunity. To do this, you need to eat right, avoid stress, overwork and lack of sleep, consume the necessary amount of vitamins with food or in the form of additives.
- Hardening. It is best to be tempered from childhood, but you can get used to this procedure at any age. Hardening strengthens the body, has a beneficial effect on the nervous system and immunity.
- Clothing for season and weather. Modern fashion often dictates norms that are difficult to understand from the standpoint of logic and health. For the sake of fashion trends, young people put on thin jeans in the cold, light shoes, short skirts, and refuse scarves and hats. As a result - poor health and constant colds. , , , .
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