How can I stop coughing tonight?

[Crotchety]

Have had horrible hacking cough for weeks (I'm vaguely asthmatic and not a smoker). I'm keeping myself awake with coughing fits at night and am fed up with it. The following do not work : cough medicine, honey, cough sweets, water. Piriton works sometimes. Does anyone have any ideas?

i am using vicks on dd2 at night, its gives her a bit of relief.

have u been to the docs by any chance? as ive been today as ive been coughing but ive gota cold and now got an chest infection..

Central heating can dry the atmosphere at night. Have you tried a humidifier in your room. That might ease your coughing bouts.

Try a cough bottle with Propolis in it..It is somehting Bee's produce to line the hive.

I found it amazing for a sore throat related cough. Also chocolate is good.

day nurse capsules

copious anounts of ventolin allowed me to sleep when I was coughing for weeks on end

Pholcodeine or codeine linctus. Codeine suppresses the cough reflex. OK if it is just a dry cough, but not a good idea if you have a chest infection. If the cough is due to a post-nasal drip - very common in a night time cough, then an antihistamine plus decongestant might help. Are you allergic to anything in the bedroom? The other thing that causes night time cough - apart from Asthma, is gastric reflux. Do you have any digestive problems? Most cough medicine is useless.

Last but not least - have you seen your doctor?

There have been some horrible bugs around - practically everyone I know has had tonsillitis and chest infections.

I hope you find something that helps.

Thanks everyone. Until I can get to the chemist tomorrow I think I'll go for the chocolate and codeine approach. With maybe piriton as well! It's such a pain - a normal sort of cough during the day and then at night my throat just gets really irritated and super-tickly. I don't think it's a chest infection or allergy/asthma related. But I do have an ongoing sinus problem and am having having a scan in a couple of weeks to see if they need draining or whatever they do to them. But I haven't had this ridiculous tickly irritation before.

If you have a sinus problem it is most likely to be a postnasal drip. Can you sleep propped up a bit? Decongestant and codeine might be the best bet. It is exhausting isn't it.

Glycerine

My mum says 'best cure for a cough is to chop your head off'

I had bad cough for a few weeks and tried covonia. It soothes straight way.

I can second covonia, works like a dream (tastes disgusting though ). Am also delighting in giving my 3 dc veno's atm. The look on ds2 face is a picture

I'm with the post nasal drip. The blocked sinuses produce a constant trickle of mucus that, when you lay flat, irritate the back of your throat making you cough. My GP used to prescribe piriton to dry up the secretions. Not sure of it worked tho.

Yep must be the postnasal drip (anyone else keep singing that line in Guys and Dolls - La grippe,la grippe, la postnasal drip...?)
Oh well - codeine seems to be working at the moment, have had the chocolate. Piriton to go. Maybe there's a gap in the market for a combination of the three. Off to bed, hopefully not to be up coughing at 2am!

Night nurse really worked for me when I had this recently, though it did make me feel woozy - it has decongestant, painkiller and sleep aid in it I think so maybe it just knocked me out. However I read somewhere recently that a scientific study had showed chocolate works better than any cough medicine that exists. They basically don't work.

snowleopard - thats why I said day nurse. Same effect without the knocked out efect.

Sorry furball, not reading whole thread in detail... but the knockout effect of night nurse might have been the only reason why it was effective at stopping the cough, IYSWIM.

Thanks for the advice on this thread - I was coughing continuously last night, sounds like the same thing as OP. I've been to get some codeine linctus and feel miles better!

Well the choco-codeine-piriton combo worked quite well last night but tonight I shall be trying the pholcodeine linctus. High hopes after Viticella's experience.