To want her to shut the fuck up?

[Helpmeoutpleasee]

Annoying housemate has a cough which she won't go to doctors for. She has been off work for a week (this is a separate issue - she is constantly off work...) and splutters/coughs loudly and everywhere, not covering her mouth. It's driving me up the wall

I never said that the doctor can't do anything for my wife, I meant they cannot do anything in regards to a normal cough which I'm 99% sure my wife doesn't have.

She blames it on things like hay fever, there's coughs going round at work etc, she point blank refuses to get it checked out and in the meantime she goes through periods of coughing her guts up and choking.

She doesn't smoke, she works in childcare so no smoky environment, obviously the children bring in bugs etc and pass them on but she's had this cough on and off for years.

Buy her a bottle of Broncho Stop. It's the only cough medicine that actually works, you can take it for all kinds of coughs.

Oh dear, Onion I am sorry. Is she afraid of doctors or does she genuinely believe she just has to suffer a cough?

Sorry just realised the smoking question wasn't aimed at me

onion - my Mum was like that for years. She'd have sudden coughing fits, and be almost unable to breathe for a bit - redfaced, streaming eyes, needing a drink of water. When she finally saw a sympathetic GP (after being turned away by a couple who didn't seem to see how bad it was) after about 30 years, it turned out to be undiagnosed asthma, which is easy to treat but dangerous if untreated.

user8384511 I have no idea but she has this utterly amazing habit of putting things off and I wonder if she just can't be arsed? Even when she pulled a muscle because of it she refused, she just moaned about it until I snapped and said if she won't get the cough looked at, she shouldn't moan. The next time she has a coughing fit I'm going to politely and firmly ask her to see a doctor. It's annoying as I'm the one with underdeveloped lungs (born prematurely) and I very rarely cough, not until I have tears rolling down my face anyway.

Thanks lanouvelleheloise, I think I need to scare some sense into her.

I can be the same way as your wife Onion as you can imagine I kick myself now. My lung function has reduced considerably and could have been saved it I hadn't sat on the problem for a couple of years. So dumb of me. I avoid doctors and hate wasting people's time.

Now of course I am using up even more hospital time as I need to see a consultant at some distance every few months to monitor me and I'm on a raft of medications.

onion - maybe the asthma story might work? I think many people have that slight fear that an apparently 'minor' symptom might herald a major and devastating diagnosis. Telling someone it's likely to be something far less serious and eminently treatable might be a way of convincing them to go.

Dismissive GPs can cause huge problems for getting a diagnosis with the kind of person who doesn't like 'causing a fuss'.

She has type 1 diabetes so she's used to doctors etc, I'm going to speak to her.

Dismissive GPs can cause huge problems for getting a diagnosis with the kind of person who doesn't like 'causing a fuss'

Absolutely.

I know the first port of call is to try a cough mixture. My GP did this and I duly went away and used it, to no avail. The thing is, I hadn't seen a doctor in 15 years. Did they not think I'd had a few coughs and colds during that time and hadn't bothered them with it? Heck, I'd even had the flu and hadn't gone near the GP. I went with the cough because I knew if was "different" and something was amiss.

When I worked for the NHS in Records, I remember processing a letter that came from a GP worried about an older patient (that they may have cancer - nothing to do with coughing this time). He stated in his letter that because the patient came to see him about once every 20 years, he was taking his complaint very seriously indeed.

She should cover her mouth, but in all other respects you should suck it up and stop moaning. I doubt that she actually enjoys coughing!

You should see a doctor if a cough has lasted more than 3 weeks. And you should not "calm" a productive cough (we cough for a reason!), but should take something to thin the cack coming up.

The joys of having to share your space with other people. It would annoy me too, I was in a cafe the other day and this woman kept coughing, she went to sit outside but I could still hear her from inside and it drove me nuts. Sadly there's not much you can do and not much she can do other than put her hand over her mouth. I hope for your sake she gets better soon.

YABU. I had a 3-4 month long cough last year that was hell on earth. Doctors wouldn’t do anything and it was a case of waiting it out. Like a PP, I pulled muscles in my chest and back and gave myself migraines from coughing so much. It was an awful few months.

If anyone had told me to shut the fuck up, I’d have punched them in the tit.

About two years ago I had a cough for 10 weeks (the advice at the time was not to go unless 8 weeks had passed). I actually went for something else but coughed while there at which point the Dr said 'ooh you'll be back to see me about that cough next'. I told him that I'd already had it for 10 weeks and I was dismissed with 'well if it's still there in 2 weeks come back'. Anyway, a week later it was so bad that everyone in work hated me told me to go back. I went back and had such a bad infection that it took too courses of antibiotics to clear it and I was on an inhaler for a couple of months.