# What’s causing me to cough? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 29, 2010, 6:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-causing-me-to-cough/562261 "2010-11-29T06:19:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Rhythmdvl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/85f322/32.png) [@Rhythmdvl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhythmdvl)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2010, 6:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-causing-me-to-cough/562261/1 "2010-11-29T06:19:34Z")
About a week ago I caught a bit of a cold. Mild sore throat and some congestion. This devolved into a nagging dry cough that went from mildly pleasant (in a it’s-nice-to-scratch-a-mosquito-bite-at-first kind of way) to now my chest hurts from exertion, my throat is raw, and I think it will take months to rid me of the horridly syrupy taste of cough drops. Yet still I cough. So what’s making me? The simple answer is I caught a cold; duh. But what’s going on\* physically\*? I caught a virus. The virii (or whatever the proper plural is) multiplied like banshii (now you know why I pluralized viruses like that) and, what? Why the throat? Or are they escaping through every mucus membrane—it’s just that that’s the only place that has nerve endings to detect them? Or is there something more insidious than that? And what’s actually causing me to cough? Is a by-product of the process little droplets of Tabasco sauce? Dead cells building up on the walls of my throat? A mucus cough I can kind of understand—but why the dry cough? What’s happening? Is the infestation literally drying out my throat and the lack of mucus causes the cough reflex (in an attempt to spread more mucus around)? Is this why cough drops help? What do Ny/Dayquil do to the condition? Now that I’ve coughed so much, what part of my throat is damaged and what type of damage is it? Is the glottis bloodied from being shaken about so much? Are the very walls stripped with lesions from working so hard? Or does the pain stem from the original irritation mechanisms that caused the cough in the first place? ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2010, 6:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-causing-me-to-cough/562261/2 "2010-11-29T06:51:24Z")
I often get that after a cold, too - my doctor prescribes me a couple of asthma drugs to be used for a couple of weeks that clears it right up. She described it (my paraphrasing) as a feedback loop that you get caught in - the cough irritates your throat, which makes you cough, which irritates your throat, and on and on. The asthma medication short-circuits the irritation/cough cycle so you heal up and stop coughing. ---
**Author:** ![Measure\_for\_Measure](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/measure_for_measure/32/557_2.png) [@Measure\_for\_Measure](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Measure_for_Measure)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2010, 6:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-causing-me-to-cough/562261/3 "2010-11-29T06:55:25Z")
> [@Mayo Clinic](#): > > A cough is your body’s way of responding to irritants in your throat and airways. An irritant stimulates nerves in your respiratory tract, sending the cough impulse to your brain, which signals the muscles of your abdomen and diaphragm to give a strong push of air to your lungs to try to expel the irritant. > **[The body's response to throat or airway irritation](https://www.mayoclinic.org/symptoms/cough/basics/definition/sym-20050846)** > > This is the body's response when the throat or airways are irritated. Coughing once in a while isn't unusual. But a long-term cough may mean a medical problem. Other than that, I can’t say. I can relate though – I have a cough as well. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2010, 7:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-causing-me-to-cough/562261/4 "2010-11-29T07:01:48Z")
And the irritant is the virus latching on to the cells and destroying them in order to reproduce, as well as the mucus that contains the virus draining down. ---
**Author:** ![Rhythmdvl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/85f322/32.png) [@Rhythmdvl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhythmdvl)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2010, 7:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-causing-me-to-cough/562261/5 "2010-11-29T07:09:52Z")
I thought viruses got into cells by mimicking proteins and locks and keys and whatnot, not by brute force destruction. Or is the irritation caused by a thousand cell deaths erupting in a million new viruses? ---
**Author:** ![needscoffee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/needscoffee/32/1076_2.png) [@needscoffee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/needscoffee)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2010, 7:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-causing-me-to-cough/562261/6 "2010-11-29T07:32:37Z")
You didn’t ask for advice, but did you know that there’s a resurgence of Whooping Cough, which doesn’t cause the characteristic whooping sound in adults. You might want to get checked out if your cough is as bad as you say. It sounds worse than the coughing you get with a regular cold. ---
**Author:** ![Malienation](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4af34b/32.png) [@Malienation](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malienation)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2010, 8:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-causing-me-to-cough/562261/7 "2010-11-29T08:07:23Z")
IANAD, but AFAIK, dry coughs (coughing fits with no obvious mucus blockage being expelled) are usually caused by an irritated vagus nerve, which stimulates coughing, which keeps irritating the vagus nerve. Ny/Dayquil contains a suppressant that, well, suppresses the nerve. This breaks the cycle. According to [Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cough), even after a viral infection clears up, the cough can linger for weeks. Good luck. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2010, 11:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-causing-me-to-cough/562261/8 "2010-11-29T11:59:34Z")
> [@Rhythmdvl](#): > > I thought viruses got into cells by mimicking proteins and locks and keys and whatnot, not by brute force destruction. > > Or is the irritation caused by a thousand cell deaths erupting in a million new viruses? That last part is what I meant. I’m sure someone with more expertise can verify, but that’s what I was taught. ---
**Author:** ![SanVito](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sanvito/32/2805_2.png) [@SanVito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanVito)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2010, 12:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-causing-me-to-cough/562261/9 "2010-11-29T12:14:02Z")
IANAD, but in the past, when I’ve retained a persistant cough after my cold has gone, it has sometimes meant that I’ve developed a throat infection, for which my GP has prescribed antibiotics. A trip to the doctor wouldn’t do you any harm. ---
**Author:** ![Rhythmdvl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/85f322/32.png) [@Rhythmdvl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rhythmdvl)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2010, 1:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-causing-me-to-cough/562261/10 "2010-11-29T13:11:14Z")
This is about as far from an abnormal cough as you can get–all part of the cold routine that everyone goes through once every few years. Not that I won’t keep my already-scheduled doctors appointment (an unrelated followup appointment), just that this isn’t a _tell me what could be causing my cough_-type post but a more general biology-like _what causes people in general_ to cough-type post? I’m curious about the mechanics of it all … how does a virus that’s ostensibly in the blood surface on the throat (or throaty bits). How does it trigger the nerve endings? Does it have flagellum that tickle the axon ends? Does it have Alien-like acid that it reflexively spits when it detects the glottis? ---
**Author:** ![ZipperJJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/zipperjj/32/211_2.png) [@ZipperJJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZipperJJ)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2010, 5:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-causing-me-to-cough/562261/11 "2010-11-29T17:01:30Z")
I think what everyone is saying is that when you had the virus, you were producing extra mucous which was giving you a cough. During that time, your coughing irritated the throat/windpipe and that makes you cough, which irritates it more and makes you cough more. The lingering cough is not related to the virus, in that the virus is gone. The virus caused the original cause for irritation, but your body reflexes kept the irritation going. ---
**Author:** ![Dallas\_Jones](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dallas_jones/32/3277_2.png) [@Dallas\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dallas_Jones)\ **Post date:** [November 29, 2010, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-s-causing-me-to-cough/562261/12 "2010-11-29T21:25:17Z")
\*\*What’s causing me to cough? \*\* Do you take an ACE inhibitor for high blood pressure? Because the tickle in the throat cough you have sounds a lot like the ACE cough. You can be on these drugs for awhile and experience no side effects, and then for some reason the tickle starts. > **[Cough and Angioedema From ACE Inhibitors](https://www.medscape.com/s/viewarticle/484537_2)** > > ACE inhibitors may cause cough and angioedema through a cascade of effects that begins with the accumulation of kinins, and then involves arachidonic acid metabolism and nitric oxide generation. > **[ACE inhibitor](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ACE_inhibitor)** > > Angiotensin-converting-enzyme inhibitors (ACE inhibitors) are a class of medication used primarily for the treatment of high blood pressure and heart failure. This class of medicine works by causing relaxation of blood vessels as well as a decrease in blood volume, which leads to lower blood pressure and decreased oxygen demand from the heart. > ACE inhibitors inhibit the activity of angiotensin-converting enzyme, an important component of the renin–angiotensin system which converts angiotensin I ...