Persistent Chronic Cough

Chronic diseases constitute a big part of the respiratory diseases.    Diseases such as asthma with allergic origin, disease called COPD, respiratory disorders arising in sleeping and idiopathic lung diseases…   And there is also chronic coughing that may continue for months and arising from smoking habit or because of influenza.

Fundamentally three reasons are specified in 92% of patients who do not smoke and whose lung x-ray is normal.

• Upper airway syndrome (previously called coughing syndrome arising from post-nasal drainage)   Secretion that washes sinuses and nose flows from nasal cavity and adenoid region to the throat.  This situation is perceived severely by some patients and causes coughing.  Allergic rhinitis, vasomotor rhinitis, rhinitis after infection, bacterial sinusitis, fungal sinusitis, chemical steam and dusts, occupational environment, pregnancy, usage of nasal drops frequently and for a long time cause severe post-nasal drainage and persistent cough. 
• It is mostly accompanied by asthma, airway tightness, labored breathing and wheezing.
• Reflux (acid flow from the stomach to esophagus and throat)  This acid flow triggers coughing reflex.  Flow of acidic content coming from the stomach to the trachea also triggers coughing.

“If the lung x-ray of the patient is normal and he/she is not smoking”:

Other reasons of persistent coughing are:

• Bronchiectasis
• Bronchitis
• Bronchial carcinoma
• Aspiration
• Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD)
• Cardiac insufficiency
• Foreign substance
• Interstitial lung disease
• Meuromuscular diseases
• Pertussis
• Psychological coughing
• Sarcoidosis
• Runaway between esophagus and trachea
• Tuberculosis
• Zenker’s diverticulum (pocket formation in the esophagus, food accumulates in this pocket and causes reflux and bad breath)