How to cure a cough by Allison E. '27

The freshman flu has long since arrived, and it will be longer yet til it releases its talons from student bodies across the country. A couple of weeks ago, like many of my compatriots, I too fell victim to the plague. I had mostly mild symptoms that disappeared quickly, but for some reason, the terrible, hacking cough that was scaring my suitemates never got the memo. It continued for weeks, long after I’d recovered from the cold.

In that time, I learned many things about coughing:

• A single awkwardly positioned cough can lead to a badly pulled muscle, which then makes all subsequent coughing (and also walking or sitting up or existing) rather painful.
• Talking, and especially singing, is very difficult, and it can make your cough worse for hours even after you’ve shut up.
• Usually coughing satiates the urge to cough, but there’s a particularly annoying type of throat tickle where coughing just makes it worse, and then you feel like a cotton ball monster is climbing down your throat trying to choke you. Do not recommend.
• If you’re coughing hard enough, you can compress your stomach so much that you throw up. This was a daily occurrence for a while.

In attempting to deal with these, I tried many, many different ways to suppress the cough enough to go about everyday life. Some of them prescribed by urgent care, and some of them prescribed by… my imagination.

Anyways, in an effort to make some small amount of lemonade⁠01 omg wait I should’ve tried this as a cough remedy too from my ailments, I now present to you the results of my incredibly unscientific study of the cough-remedy-space.

1. Masks

Even though I wasn’t contagious after the first week or so (according to urgent care), most people around me didn’t know that, and I was hacking non-stop everywhere I went. I was truly a public menace, so I wore the mask for other people’s peace of mind. But! The mask also helped keep the air I was breathing moist, which kept any dry-throat coughs at bay.

7/10

2. Cough drops

I went through at least four family sized bags of cough drops⁠02 There are few pharmacy items that I buy from name brand, but when I’m coughing, I’m willing to shell out for the Ricola lemon mint cough drops. They taste great, and more importantly, they have less menthol in them, so I can use more of them without getting a stomach ache. in a month. These are particularly useful when trying to sing–they don’t make the cough go away, but they do help. For several choir rehearsals, I was basically just chain smoking cough drops the whole way through–as soon as one was finished, or sometimes even before, I’d pop another one. This rounds out to about 12 cough drops per 2.5 hr rehearsal. Mildly concerning? Yes. Did my stomach hurt after? Also yes. But it did prevent me from coughing every 30 seconds.

9/10

3. Hi-Chew

I ran out of cough drops at the same time our on-campus grocery store also ran out, so I replaced them with Hi-Chew. These do not work as well as cough drops, and don’t last as long, but they’re sufficient in cases of emergency. Also they taste good.

5/10

4. Gum

To avoid consuming 30 Hi-Chew (and 90g of sugar) per day, I introduced a second cough drop replacement: chewing gum. This one actually works shockingly well, partly because the gum is minty, but I think mainly because it encourages saliva production for as long as you’re chewing it. Only downside is that my jaw gets tight if I chew too much.

I did once try both gum and Hi-Chew at the same time during choir rehearsal. As you might expect, the flavors and textures blend quite poorly, and a nontrivial amount of gum probably got swallowed with the Hi-Chew. I do not recommend this combination.

8/10

5. Sleep

I was very careful about averaging ~8 hours of sleep per night, and I assume this broadly helped. Difficult to isolate the effect, though.

?/10

6. Honey lemon ginger tea

Over the course of these weeks, my wonderful roommate⁠03 or, used to be roommate, but we still live in the same suite and also she deserves a grander title than ‘friend’ Miranda made me an egregious quantity of honey lemon ginger tea. This one is probably the holy grail of all cough remedies–the honey coats your throat to prevent the tickle, and I have absolutely no clue what the lemon and ginger do but somehow they are also soothing.

The only reason I didn’t use this 24/7 is that the tea is tricky to transport and keep warm, and also I can only steal so much of Miranda’s groceries before I turn into a goblin.

10/10

7. Black milk tea with honey

My alternative to honey lemon ginger tea that does not deplete Miranda’s supply of groceries. Still has honey, but I could definitely tell the difference without lemon or ginger.

7/10

8. Straight honey, poured onto a spoon

Sometimes I was too lazy to make tea, and sometimes I needed a super-concentrated hit to get me through a particularly bad bout of coughing. I managed to go through half a bottle of honey in a week and a half. Miranda was slightly appalled. But it works!

Also I once brought the entire bottle to a rehearsal and poured it straight into my mouth.

9.5/10

9. Dextromethrophan, aka Delsym

I was taking this for a long time, and I think?? it helped a little bit, but not much. Lowkey though I like the way the grape liquid tastes.

5/10

10. Guaifenesin, aka Mucinex

I tried this one too, but didn’t really notice any effects. Also it tastes worse.

3/10

11. Being silent

A rather difficult proposition in everyday life, especially when you have classes and choir rehearsals. But when I did employ it, it actually made a big difference. It just also made me sad, because I like yapping.

6/10

12. Soup

This was not as effective as it has been for me in the past. Nevertheless, good soup.

5/10

13. Pseudoephedrine hydrochloride

I got this one prescribed on my first urgent care visit, tried it just a couple times, and it didn’t do anything for me. Probably works very well in other cases, just didn’t happen to in mine.

This feels too medical for me to have an opinion / 10

14. Benzonatate

Basically the same thing as 11.

I am not a doctor I do not make medical recommendations / 10

15. Neti-pot

If you’ve never heard of a neti-pot, it’s literally just pouring water through your nose to flush your sinuses. It is truly a fascinating experience to pour warm, salty water through one nostril and watch it come out the other. Lowkey less unpleasant than I thought it’d be. A lot of people absolutely swear by this, and it definitely helped me some, but not as much as I hoped.

7/10

16. Water

Oops this should probably be #1 but I lowkey forgot about it. Great for temporary relief (i.e. while you’re actively swallowing but not necessarily after), but generally not too effective for me. Very good for bodily and immune function though!

8/10

17. Albuterol inhaler

I think this is one of the canonical asthma inhalers? Also prescribed by urgent care. We were definitely going for the shotgun approach with these prescriptions, because nobody knew what was going on (I guess this is not uncommon for coughs). Took me a bit to figure out how to use it, and I didn’t really notice an effect.

Please consult your physician / 10

18. Ipratripium bromide inhaler

By the time I was prescribed this inhaler, I was getting kinda desperate. I think it helped a little bit, but by this point it might’ve been placebo. Also for some reason this one tasted like green apple???

I didn’t even know there were multiple kinds of inhalers / 10

19. Smoothie

Lowkey the same as water, but tasty. I guess the cold also helps a bit. I just wanted more excuse to make smoothie. Plus you can add honey.

8/10

Intermission. Things I considered but did not try:

• Antibiotics bought over-the-counter outside the US, offered by one of my friends, which I almost took until my mom yelled at me
• Hungarian cough medicines that I had to google, but unfortunately there were some possible interactions with my other medications
• Handstands⁠04 I can't even do a handstand
• Giving up on all classes and becoming a hermit

I think I probably would have tried all of these, BUT! Finally, finally, finally, I found something that worked.

20. Fluticasone nasal spray, aka Flonase

Apparently.

The solution this whole time.

Was Flonase.

Which I could’ve bought WEEKS AGO and without needing urgent care because it’s OVER THE COUNTER. I’ve literally taken Flonase for allergies before. I could’ve been taking it this entire time. AUGH.

Flonase takes a while to build up/kick in, but now that I’ve been taking it a while, my cough is almost entirely gone. I am very very grateful. But also a little miffed. What do you mean I was throwing up every night and the solution this whole time was FLONASE. Mildly infuriating.

Anyways. I guess this is just a PSA in favor of the shotgun approach to cough remedies. The wonders of modern medicine!

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Also, big shoutout to the last remedy, which I only had the chance to do after the cough subsided:

21. GET VACCINATED

plsplsplsplspls get your flu shot and your COVID shot if you can :D