Causes and Remedies of a Dry and Tickly Cough
Category :
Health
Are you worried of a dry tickly cough that won’t go away? This blog will help you with the underlying causes, symptoms and probable remedies for a dry and tickly cough. This article focuses on empowering people on tackling dry and tickly cough and finding effective solutions to get quick relief.
What do you understand by a dry and tickly cough?
You may often confuse a tickly cough with a dry one. However, there lies a slight line of difference between these two conditions. The main characteristics of a tickly cough include an irritating and persistent sensation in your throat. This causes you to cough frequently. An inflammation occurs in your upper airways, particularly in the throat and larynx. This irritation ultimately leads to the tickling sensation, resulting in the cough reflex.
The cough produces discomfort in your throat. However, this cough does not include the production of phlegm or mucus in your lungs like a chesty cough. A simple feeling of inflammation in your upper respiratory tract ultimately leads to the tickling sensation.
Signs and Symptoms
The principal symptom of a dry and tickly cough is a feeling of irritation or itchiness in your throat. This triggers a natural reflex in the form of a cough or a sneeze.
Some other common symptoms indicating a dry and tickly cough are:
- Soreness in the throat
- Muscular chest pain
- A runny nose
- Tickling sensation in your airways
- Continuous coughing
- Difficulty in breathing
- Pain in the throat
- A high body temperature
- Discharge of blood along with your cough
Causes of a Dry and Tickly Cough
Tickly coughs are mostly post-viral coughs, occurring as a secondary effect after a cold or flu. However, a series of basic to complex symptoms are also evident in case of a dry and tickly cough. For instance, you will often experience:
- Post-viral symptoms
As you are likely to get post-viral symptoms after a common cold or flu, this generates a dry and tickly cough. This suggests that recent illness may often lead to post-viral signs like a persistent dry and tickly cough. This is how your immune system responds to your recent infection.
- Allergic reactions
You may get a dry cough due to the triggering of different kinds of allergens in your body. Particles of allergens may vary from dust to pollens to moulds. On the other hand, inhaling strong smells of body sprays or perfumes or smoke may cause the condition to become worse.
The principal cause of your dry cough is the inflammation occurring in your airways and lungs. You can, however, get over this condition by figuring out and effectively managing the original cause of your irritation or trigger.
- Asthma
You may also encounter inflammation in your airways due to asthma. This causes your air passages to constrict or become narrow. This may eventually result in breathing difficulties due to shortage of space for passing of air. We can, therefore, say that asthma is a leading cause of a dry tickly cough that won’t go away.
- Chronic acid reflux
You may get to experience GERD (Gastro oesophageal reflux disease), also common as chronic acid reflux, due to reflux of your stomach acids within your food pipe (oesophagus). This is another serious factor generating an irritation in your stomach, and ultimately resulting in dry cough.
You may also get a dry cough due to different environmental or physiological factors like:
- Air pollution
- Heart failure
- Sudden changes in surrounding temperature
- A dry atmosphere
- Lung cancer
How do you feel and sound when you have a dry and tickly cough?
You may get a cough even if you do not have mucus or phlegm in your lungs. For instance, a burning sensation or irritation occurring in your airways or respiratory tract will make you cough. A dry cough sounds quite rough and coarse.
On the other hand, you are likely to sense a feeling of inflammation in your throat and lungs. The frictional force occurring in your throat generates a severe irritation. However, this won’t discharge any phlegm or mucus with your cough.
How long does a dry tickly cough last?
Dry and tickly coughs are usually not much severe and can easily healthcare . You do not require medical attention unless the symptoms get out of control. Dry and tickly coughs usually take 3 to 4 weeks to recover.
However, you must consult a GP or a pharmacist if your health does not improve beyond the given time. Worse forms of dry and tickly cough may eventually lead to heart burns, heart failure or asthma with shortness of breath.
Tips to Avoid a Dry and Tickly Cough
Although no specific cure is there for a dry and tickly cough, you follow some tips to ease your symptoms. For example,
- Try to avoid pollution, dry and dusty environments as these trigger your coughing fits
- Avoid junk food that can irritate your throat further.
- Try to inhale some steam or take a hot bath as the moisture can remove the dryness of your throat and airways
- You can also stimulate your saliva secretion, which maintains a moist throat; either by in taking cough drops or by sucking on lozenges
- Avoid talking and take a proper vocal rest to reduce the soreness in your throat
- Try to avoid the probable triggers of your dry and tickly cough such as allergens
Remedies and Treatment Options
In case you are experiencing a dry tickly cough that won’t go away, you can start on medications according to your doctor’s instructions. Medicines containing glycerol are highly efficient in managing dry coughs.
Summary
In this blog, you can get to explore the different causes leading to a dry and tickly cough. The treatment options and remedies of a dry cough educate people on effective management of dry and tickly cough. All these factors help you easily differentiate a chesty cough from a dry, tickly cough that won’t go away.
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