WARNING MEDICAL ADVICE! What do I do about my throat?

In My Humble Opinion
1

So I had the flu or whatever. I don’t know if it was officially the flu but it was like a really bad cold that didn’t get any better for an entire 2 weeks. So during that time I developed a cough. At times the cough was brutally violent particularly when it woke me up in the middle of the night.

So now I feel fine. The only problem is, no voice. I can force out a croak but that’s about it. I had to go work that way so it didn’t give me a chance to heal. I figured a few days off with little talking would help. It’s now the fourth day without a voice.

So now the medical advice part. Is it even worth it to go to the doctor? Can they do anything for me? Do I just wait and it will come back? What are the chances I did permenant damage?

2

I don’t have any medical training but I’d go to the doctor.

My reasons are that, first, this whole episode has been going on for over two weeks which is getting to be pretty long. If it was just three or four days, to me, that would be different.

Second, it just sounds a little unusual to me that you’ve felt well for a few days now but your voice still hasn’t come back.

Third, you’re asking here, which indicates it’s also interfering with your sense of well being, at least to some extent.

If you do go to the doctor, I would be interested in what they say about why your voice is still gone. Best wishes.

3

I went to the doctor for the original illness. My daughter had the same thing. It’s been going around lots of people I know had it. That’s not the issue. I’m not sick now.

The voice thing is related only because my coughing injured it. I am no longer ill but the side effect remains. If all I’m going to hear from a doctor is “give it time” I probably won’t waste my time going. I’m not going to base my actions off of what I see here but I’m curious if others have been through it and what happened.

4

I’d put off a doctor visit, because my PCP would listen to my complaint, take my BP, auscultate my chest, then set up a referral for an ENT specialist. There’d be an eight week wait for the specialist appointment, which I’d cancel when my voice returned.

5

take a spoon full of raw honey 3 times a day.

6

Try some tea and honey with lemon.

7

I have consulted the oracles on Google and gained some interesting information. You likely have laryngitis. Treatments include resting your voice, gargling with salt water, drinking lots of fluids to stay hydrated, and other assorted remedies like hot tea and honey. I’ll note that WebMD specifically mentions that you should see a doctor if it lasts longer than 2 weeks.

Sounds like you should check in with the doc again. Can you email or call them as a starting point?

8

Add a shot of Irish whiskey before bed. The warmth of it will help relax your throat.

9

Tea with lemon is pretty much my all day everyday drink. I’ll have to try and choke down some honey.

That’s what I figured.

10

Strep has hit our area hard, Loach.

Assuming that the actual cold/flu is over… assuming its not whooping cough (which is called the 100 days cough & Doctors hate to declare it because of the paperwork)…

Assuming all that, a bad cough is a vicious cycle. The more you cough, the more you irritate your throat, the more you need to cough, the more you cough, etc.
Doctors can prescribe heavier cough suppressants than you can get at CVS over the counter. Personally, if you are posting here, I’d say its worth the co-pay & the possible scrip deductible to find out.

11

Might stop by to visit the doc, but i had something that sounds similar and my voice took a vacation.

I used hot honey and lemon juice, and hot garlic, basically 2 big table spoons of minced garlic in 8 ounces of hot water, i’d gargle the garlic a bit then swallow it (maybe sounds awful but i like garlic)

Anyways, things set themselves right in a few days

12

Are you using inhalers? I had a terrible cough, went to my PCP, and was prescribed Advair and Albuterol, lost my voice within a few days, and after the cough went away, dropped the inhalers, and my voice came back . IANAD. YMMV.

13

Have you seen an ENT doctor , you should have someone call for you and see if they want you to come in. You should rest your voice and I agree with others to take honey and warm lemon juice . My mom would also add butter to this when we had a sore throat .

14

Loach - whatever happened with this? I have lost my voice. I can sort of croak, a little, but whenever I try my throat starts to hurt and I ended up coughing.

Did you find something that works? I’ve been using hot liquids. My throat has laughed at me.

15

I should add that my husband is out of town and I’m solo parenting two kids (one is autistic). Completely resting my voice is out of the question, unfortunately.

16

It’s called laryngitis, and the only thing that will REALLY help is bed rest for a couple of days and don’t try to talk.

17

I had this too. My voice returned on its own. I did take some ibuprofen, which is good for swelling, and a combination cough medicine of dextromethorphan and guaifenisen. The second is an expectorant. It will keep your cough from being dry; a wet cough is a lot less irritating than a dry cough. The dextro is a suppressant. I still coughed with it, but it cut the amount by about 80% and the intensity by about 50%. I also stopped having coughing fits that woke me up and made it hard to catch my breath.

This is something I get from time to time, maybe every four or five years. I will have a bad upper respiratory infection, and it will be followed by a bronchitis that lasts 4-6 weeks. I sometimes get laryngitis during the bronchitis.

Warm liquids, rest, and ibuprofen are the only treatments, along with the cough suppressants so it doesn’t get worse.

A note on talking: aside from talking irritating your larynx, if you talk, especially shout, while you have laryngitis, you can cause scarring on your vocal folds, AKA vocal “nodes,” which make your voice raspy.

I understand your situation-- I have a child too, and when he was small, my husband was in the Army Reserves, and I now work in a job where I have to go in sick if I’m not contagious. But limit your talking as much as possible, and for cripes’ sake, don’t shout. Try to project from your diaphragm, like you are speaking on stage, and get as much volume as you can that way. Shouting tightens up your throat. Projecting relaxes it.

If you still have laryngitis when your husband gets back, see a doctor. You might need steroids. I had to have them once for a very bad case of laryngitis where I quite literally could not speak, not at all. My husband knows just a little bit of sign language, and I sure as heck made him use it. I actually thought about getting an interpreter for the doctor’s appointment, but I settled for writing things down, and letting DH fill in details.

18

Thank you. Very helpful. :slight_smile:

19

Just a note. If you have never taken guaifenisen before, it can wire you, and keep you awake. If you have trouble sleeping, even a little, don’t take it at night, or take a low dose to see how you react, but definitely take the dextro

UNLESS

If you take an SSRI. Drugs like Prozac, Luvox and Zoloft DO NOT mix with dextromethorphan. You must go to a doctor, and ask for codeine or tessalon as a cough suppressant. Codeine is way cheaper, and some insurance companies won’t cover tessalon if you can can take codeine. Tessalon, however, has no side effects I have ever noticed, other than slight thirst, which could just be the cold, and it works great. But it’s relatively new, and still under patent. I get it to avoid headaches, so my insurance pays for it.

20

Tessalon helps with headaches? Tell me more please. I am the enthroned queen of headaches. I’m always looking for things to take to my neurologist and ask about.