[고양신문] Coughing is a normal defense mechanism of the respiratory system to prevent mucus, germs, and dust from entering the airways. However, if cough persists, it is recognized as a disease that must be actively treated because it worries regarding health and causes trouble to the surroundings. Moreover, if it gets worse when you are forced to cough or when you are nervous, you will suspect a tic. And because the influence of Omicron, a variant of the corona virus, is concentrated in the throat, it becomes more sensitive when a dry cough comes out.
In general, dry cough can be easily understood by knowing the structure and function of the respiratory tract. The passage through which air communicates for respiration starts from the mucous membrane of the nasal cavity and finally reaches the alveoli. In this process, the air maintains a moist state, controls temperature and humidity, and facilitates immunity and foreign substance discharge. The respiratory passage regulates the amount of mucus discharged according to the condition of the external air and adjusts it flexibly through changes in cilia motility.
When such changes cannot be actively controlled, the oral mucosa sneezes, and the throat and bronchial airway mucosa actively discharge through the cough reflex, which is cough. In addition, when the airway mucosa becomes difficult to maintain moisture, excessive blood circulation occurs to compensate for this, resulting in congestion. Coughing occurs to relieve this hypersensitivity condition, which is called dry cough or clearing cough.
The most frequent case of clearing the cough is when the humidification from the nose is not smooth due to rhinitis and sinusitis. Breathing in our body must reach the alveoli in a clear and clean state with a temperature of 36.5℃ and humidity of 100% following going through heating and humidification, purification, and immunity filtering.
In this process, the nose and paranasal sinuses work hard to warm and moisten the inhaled air by heating and humidifying it. If you have rhinitis or the outside air is too dry or cold, this role cannot be fulfilled, so cold and dry air arrives in your throat. At this time, when the respiratory passage centered on the throat rushes blood to relieve this coldness, the throat becomes swollen, and when a lot of mucus is secreted to relieve dryness, phlegm is formed.
The phlegm generated in the throat is sticky and does not come off easily, giving the feeling that something is attached to the throat. In addition, if the dryness is not relieved, the situation is like a blade of wind touching the throat, resulting in a sudden dry cough.
The next most common cause of coughing is tic disorder. Vocal tic is a phenomenon in which loud sounds such as ‘mum, grunt, grunt’, clearing the throat, clicking the tongue, spitting, and breathing are made without meaning. These simple vocal tics sometimes turn into complex vocal tics, which are symptoms of spitting out words that do not fit the situation at all. Typical examples include echolalia, which is the imitation of someone else’s words, or tautology, which is the repetition of the same words. In severe cases, even ‘obsessive obscenity’ appears, in which excessive profanity is embarrassing to hear.
Complex vocal tic is a clear tic disorder, but simple vocal tic is often not a tic, but a simple phenomenon revealed by the strain on the throat that is an extension of rhinitis symptoms. Since rhinitis is similar to a vocal tic, the distinction is ambiguous because the sound artificially made to relieve throat irritation. Therefore, in this clinic, if the sound is heard only when trying to breathe out, it can be a cough caused by sputum, and if the sound is heard even when breathing in, it can be a vocal tic.
On the other hand, there are cases where followingeffects of corona or a severe cold this year leave followingeffects when coughing badly. Usually, the mucous membrane is damaged and there are no sequelae, but if the epithelial cells of the respiratory passage are damaged, sequelae remain. These followingeffects usually do not show symptoms, but when you catch a cold once more or the external environment becomes poor, you are exposed as a severe cough. This is a situation in which damage to the throat and respiratory tract has not completely healed, so treatment for epithelial cell regeneration is required.
If the dry cough is severe, whether the disease is the followingmath of rhinitis, tic disorder, or corona sequelae, the basic framework of treatment should start with smooth circulation of the mucous membranes of the respiratory tract. After that, in the case of dry cough that appears due to the followingeffects of corona and the nasal cavity and paranasal sinuses not doing their job and putting a strain on the throat, you must first improve the function of the nasal mucosa and then sort out the causes of rhinitis one by one to relieve dry cough. The easiest and quickest way to improve the function of the nasal mucosa is to clean the mucous membrane of the nose with an herbal nasal cleanser and relieve edema to improve stagnant blood flow in the nasal cavity.
In the case of tic disorders, it is important to provide sufficient nutrition and oxygen to the child’s brain and congested areas so that the body can function properly. At this time, in order to fully provide oxygen and sugar to the brain and nerve cells, the treatment aims to remove the gas vapor part that interferes with blood circulation, identify and supplement the imbalanced elements of the body, and return to a healthy body without identity. It is important.
Yoo Yoo-woo Yoo, Yoo-woo Korean Clinic Director
