What is chronic cough?
Chronic cough is a respiratory condition affecting around 12% of the UK population. Coughing is one of your body’s many defence mechanisms which is activated in the brain when you inhale an irritant, such as smoke or perfume. Everybody at some point in their life will suffer from a terrible cough, usually combined with a cold or flu-like symptoms. For most people, when the cold goes away, so does the cough, but for some people although the hot and cold sweats, sore nose and stuffy head might disappear, the cough remains with no sign of going away. A cough that has lasted for more than 8 weeks in known as a chronic cough.
There are sometimes underlying causes of a chronic cough such
as asthma, nasal disease and acid reflux (where stomach acids rise
up into the food pipe). Some treatments can also cause persistent
cough, such as blood pressure tablets (e.g. lisinopril, enalapril,
ramipril). If there is an underlying cause for your cough then it is
possile to treat it with existing therapies. However, in 40% of cases,
a person's chronic cough has no underlying cause.
I've spent my career seeing patients in my specialist clinic for the
investigation and treatment of chronic cough, and conducting clinical
research aimed at finding therapies for those patients whose cough
is resistant to treatment.
If you're suffering with chronic cough then I don't need to tell you how
debilitating the condition is. Sleepless nights, social embarrassment,
urinary incontinence and blackouts are just some of the symptoms you
may be struggling to deal with at the moment. You're not alone. I see
hundred's of new patients each year who are suffering too, and my team
and I are doing our utmost to find you a cure.
We've developed this website with you in mind. I hope you will find its content easy to
navigate and understand. But most of all, I hope you find the information you find on this website useful.