Dealing with Your Doctor/Chronic Cough

[Guest guest]

Barb's post was a good one. There are a number of good ideas contained

in that post for how to deal with your doctor. Thanks for posting it.

I had a chronic cough for years prior to my tx. I saw an

Allergist/Respirologist, had lots of tests, tried every medication for

asthma and allergy. Eventually, I stopped taking all of them because

they did not improve the cough or the shortness of breath I was

experiencing. Both these symptoms disappeared after my tx. This leaves

me thinking there may be two answers to my cough and perhaps yours.

One, the steroids and immunosupressive drugs stopped the irritation of

my lungs (and therefore I must have some form of asthma) or the

enlarged liver/spleen were irritating my diaphragm and that was what

was causing the cough and shortness of breath. With the new normal

sized liver this irritation is gone. I think it's the later

explanation. In your case it really may depend on your liver/spleen

size and whether or not you have other reasons to have a cough. Viral

coughs can hang on for months after the acute illness is gone.

Aubrey, MD

PSC '81, UC '90, LTX '98, Recurrence '05