On Coughing As Advised by Dr JB Lim

On Mon, 3/14/11, lim juboo wrote:

Dear all of you,

Thanks to you all for all your medical advice.

.

This is just to advise all of you that a productive cough, i.e. one that produces a lot of Phlegm especially if it is yellowish or greenish colour (indicates an infection in the upper respiratory tract) ) should never be suppressed by all those anti-tussive agents (cough suppressants) you all have been advising one another.

A cough has a purpose. A cough is a reflex action meant to be protective to the body. It is meant to be there for the body to get rid of any respiratory irritant (smoke, allergens, pathogens, pollutants, chemical fumes, etc, etc, etc) that has got into your airways. The body simply responds by trying to cough them up.

You should never, never try to silence this protective mechanism with all those 'medications' you all have been passing round from one person to another.

Instead, you should try to help the body to cleanse itself by allowing the body to cough them up, and not try to take all sorts of unnecessary sweets, cough mixtures, Strepsils, winter melow etc, etc to silence the body's own natural response to harmful irritants that has entered the body.

If the cough is a dry and just an unproductive one, maybe an anti-tussive (cough suppressant) may be indicated and prescribed. But if the cough produces a lot of secretion, then please don't be an idiot to try to stop and suppress it. You can be drowned by your own secretion if you prevent the phlegm from trying to get out.

Doctors would normally will try to promote the expulsion by prescribing an expectorant (medication that promotes expulsion by coughing) in the event of a productive cough instead of using an anti-tussive (cough suppressant) which only make matters worse for the patient.

In fact sometimes we need to ask the patient to inhale steam to liquify the thick phlegm in the respiratory tract, and even use a sucker to try to suck out the excessive fluid & irritant if an expectorant has not been successful.

Sometimes I teach my own patients postural drainage (a form of physio-therapy) to promote excessive mucous accumulation that can compromise breathing and respiratory functions.

Please do not pass unqualified advice round to the disadvantage of the ignorant and other patients.

I am sorry I need to intervene after reading all your 'medical advice' .

juboo lim

BSc (Physiol), PG Dip Nutr, MSc, MD, PhD (Med), FRSPH, FRSM

Special Medical Adviser to

The Dynapharm Pharmaceutical Group