A small cough may cause big trouble, and there are some tips to relieve the symptoms!

Author: Su Huiping, Chief Physician, Dongzhimen Hospital, Beijing University of Chinese Medicine

Reviewer: Li Fangjie, Chief Physician, Wangjing Hospital, China Academy of Chinese Medical Sciences

Coughing is very common in daily life.

Some people think that coughing is a minor problem, especially for young people who are busy with work and have a fast pace of life. If they cough frequently and do not go to the hospital for treatment, the disease may be delayed.

Some people also think that coughing means inflammation, and they worry that the cough will gradually get worse or lead to other problems, so they blindly choose antibiotics on their own.

In fact, both of these attitudes are not quite right. How can we deal with it correctly? We must understand some common sense about coughing.

1. What causes cough?

From a professional perspective, coughing is a protective mechanism for the human body.

For example, if you enter a room filled with smoke, the smoke will irritate your respiratory tract and cause you to cough. Or on a smoggy day, you may cough because you inhale tiny smog particles that contain viruses, bacteria or other harmful substances. Sometimes, you may choke while eating and talking, and you may cough. Coughing in the above situations is good for the body. Coughing can prevent smoke particles, smog particles and food from entering the airway, protecting the trachea and lung tissue from damage. Therefore, coughing itself is a protective mechanism.

But coughing can often be a symptom of a disease. For example, a cold can cause coughing, and pharyngitis can also cause coughing, which are relatively mild. Coughing can also be caused by more serious diseases, such as pneumonia or even lung cancer. The early manifestations of these serious diseases may also be coughing.

Of course, from the perspective of traditional Chinese medicine, cough may be caused by wind-cold, wind-heat, or wind-dryness, which are all "exogenous coughs". It may also be an "internal injury cough" caused by emotions, diet and other factors.

2. What are the differences between wind-cold cough, wind-heat cough, and wind-dryness cough?

Traditional Chinese medicine divides coughs into "exogenous coughs" and "internal injury coughs". Traditional Chinese medicine believes that exogenous coughs are caused by external evils, which include wind, cold, heat, dampness, dryness, and fire. The evil that easily causes coughs is wind evil, which often combines with cold evil, heat evil, and dryness evil to cause illness. Therefore, wind-cold cough, wind-heat cough, and wind-dryness cough are the three most common types of exogenous cough syndromes.

Figure 1 Original copyright image, no permission to reprint

The symptoms of cough vary depending on the type of cough:

Cough caused by wind and cold, cough with thin white sputum, often accompanied by nasal congestion, runny white or clear nasal discharge, headache, body aches, fear of cold and no sweat.

Wind-heat cough, cough with sticky or yellow sputum, often accompanied by sore throat, headache, fever, aversion to wind and sweating.

Wind-dryness cough is common in the dry autumn season. The cough is characterized by dry cough without sputum, or little sputum, sticky and difficult to cough out, or sputum with blood, often accompanied by symptoms such as dry nose, dry throat, and itchy throat.

Exogenous coughs are common in cold coughs and allergic coughs, and are often related to seasonal changes.

3. What is internal injury cough?

According to traditional Chinese medicine, seven emotions can cause illness, including joy, anger, worry, thought, sadness, fear, and shock. For example, anger can cause liver qi to be uncomfortable, or a bad temper can cause liver fire, which can also cause coughing, often manifested as coughing paroxysms, often accompanied by dry throat, bitter mouth, foreign body sensation in the throat, chest and flank distension or pain, which is a symptom of liver fire attacking the lungs.

In addition, if you don't pay attention to your diet, such as irregular diet, overeating, overeating fatty, sweet, cold and cold foods, which damage the spleen and stomach, and produce phlegm and dampness, it will also cause coughing, which is often manifested as coughing with a lot of phlegm. If the phlegm is white, it is mostly a syndrome of phlegm blocking the lungs. If the phlegm is yellow, it is mostly a syndrome of phlegm-heat stagnating the lungs;

Staying up late to work overtime, or having too many chores at home, which makes this period very tiring and overwork damages the vital energy, or being old and weak, insufficient lung qi or depletion of lung yin are also common causes of internal injury cough, which is a cough of insufficient lung qi and depletion of lung yin syndrome.

Figure 2 Original copyright image, no permission to reprint

The above cough syndromes are all internal injury coughs, and are also common in patients with chronic diseases, such as chronic bronchitis, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, etc.

Of course, simply judging the cough syndrome by symptoms is not enough. It should be analyzed comprehensively by factors such as tongue and pulse to make the syndrome differentiation more accurate. In clinical practice, different Chinese medicine treatments are used for different syndromes.

4. What are some tips to relieve cough symptoms?

If you have a cough, it is generally not recommended for patients to take medication on their own, but there are several small methods that can be used to relieve cough symptoms.

① Rinse mouth with saline solution

For coughs caused by itchy or sore throats, you can gargle with 0.9% medical saline solution. When gargling, raise your head to allow the saline solution to fully contact your throat, and then spit out the water. This can be used several times a day. It is relatively safe and has almost no side effects.

Here you should be careful not to mix the mixture yourself with table salt and boiled water. If you don't get the ratio right, and it is too concentrated or too diluted, it will not only have no effect, but may even aggravate your cough.

②Black plum and licorice drink

2-3 black plums, 3 grams of Platycodon grandiflorum, and 3 grams of raw licorice.

It is suitable for patients with itchy and dry throat, dry cough and little sputum in spring and autumn.

Specific method: Like professional tea making, first wash the three herbs with boiling water, then brew with boiling water for about 15 minutes, and then drink it instead of tea. You can also add some honey to enhance the taste, but it is not suitable for diabetics.

③ Yinhua Gancao Drink

5 grams of honeysuckle, 3 grams of platycodon, and 3 grams of raw licorice.

Suitable for patients with sore throat and cough caused by wind-heat invading the lungs.

The specific method is the same as Wumei Gancao Yin

④ Orange peel and licorice drink

3 grams of orange peel, 3 grams of rose flower, and 3 grams of raw licorice.

It is suitable for patients with cough due to liver qi stagnation and foreign body sensation in the throat.

Orange peel is the white silk on the orange, which has the effect of regulating qi and eliminating phlegm. Rose can soothe the liver and regulate qi, and raw licorice can clear the throat.

The specific method is the same as Wumei Gancao Drink.

⑤ Tangerine peel and licorice drink

5 grams of dried tangerine peel, 3 grams of magnolia officinalis flower, and 3 grams of raw licorice.

It is suitable for cough syndrome with a lot of white sputum, such as patients with chronic cough caused by long-term smoking and bronchitis, who often cough with a lot of white sputum. You can try Tangerine Peel and Licorice Drink.

The specific method is the same as that of Wumei Licorice Drink, but adding honey is not recommended.