Oh, thanks! Bastards.

[elfs]

Storm has this persistent, nasty cough. It's the same one she gets every winter, only this winter it seems to be nastier than usual, and is keeping her (and us) up at night. We've tried dextromethorphan and the humidifier. Menthol drops seems to work well, but we ran out last night, so that's on my to-shop list for the day.

Google is no help. The spammers are winning and right now Google's first few pages are tragic. I tried a few other search engines (Blekko, DuckDuckGo, Bing), but they weren't so helpful either.

One of the first-page entries for "persistent dry cough," though, starts out with this list: (1) Tuberculosis, (2) Pneumonia, (3) Lung Cancer. Then it ends with a "ha, ha, just kidding, it's probably a cold or allergic post-nasal drip."

Bastard. And I have to ask, how many people are gonna go reading below the fold? And the "just kidding" part is in a smaller, serif font, different from the body of the article.

Comments

[l33tminion]

I remember getting croup when I was really young. Wasn't that uncomfortable, but it was disturbing.

I've sometimes found that pseudoephedrine works very well for treating a persistent cough. Even when there's no obvious nasal congestion, there can be a subtle post-nasal drip. Ibuprofen is also very helpful when the throat is irritated.

[urox.livejournal.com]

I'm guessing it's croup, too. Irritation of the throat possibly caused by:
1) cold, dry air
2) hot dry air indoors due to heating systems
3) cold weather causing nasal drip causing irritation

Could be whooping cough, also.