[메디컬투데이=김준수 기자] As the quarantine measures implemented due to Corona 19 have been eased and the wearing of masks has been completely lifted, it is not difficult to see people taking off their masks on the street or in public places. While Corona 19 is showing a stable trend, ‘cold’, a representative respiratory infection, is rampant as the season changes in earnest. If the cough persists even following the symptoms of a cold have improved, you can suspect ‘chronic cough’, not a simple cold symptom.
Coughing when you have a cold is one of the processes of discharging various foreign substances that have entered the airways and inflammatory substances accumulated in the body, and is a means of discharging inflammatory substances accumulated in the body and removing bacteria. A cough caused by a cold can be seen as part of the recovery process, but if the cough persists for more than 3 weeks, you should see if it is a symptom of another disease.
Diseases that cause chronic cough range from relatively mild diseases such as sinusitis, rhinitis, allergies, and reflux esophagitis to severe diseases such as asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), lung cancer, and tuberculosis.
| ▲ Director Park Jong-seol (Photo = Courtesy of Yeongtong Top Internal Medicine) |
Among many diseases, asthma causes severe lung function decline, and in the case of tuberculosis, special attention is needed because it is likely to be contagious to others. Among them, late detection of lung cancer increases the mortality rate, so early detection is a critical factor in increasing the probability of survival, so timely screening and treatment are essential.
Park Jong-seol, CEO of Yeongtong Top Internal Medicine, said, “You need to maintain a healthy condition with regular immunity-enhancing exercise, healthy eating, and regular life, and keeping the surrounding environment dry is also good for chronic cough prevention as well as long-term “However, if the cough does not stop and continues for more than three weeks, finding the cause of chronic cough at a medical institution and receiving necessary treatment is a great help in preventing damage to lung function and various serious diseases,” he advised.
Reporter Kim Junsu of Medical Today (junsoo@mdtoday.co.kr)
[저작권자ⓒ 메디컬투데이. 무단전재-재배포 금지]
