Chronic cough is a cough that lasts for 8 weeks or longer. This cough is often dry and unproductive and can occur in episodes throughout the day. It has often not responded to typical medical treatments.
What causes chronic cough?
Chronic cough often occurs because the throat has become hypersensitive to certain triggers. Common triggers include odors, eating and drinking, temperature change, air quality change, and robust voice use like laughing, talking on the phone, and singing.
How is chronic cough treated?
Before being seen at the Emory Voice Center for chronic cough, we request you see your primary care physician to rule out common reasons for cough. Cough treatment at Emory Voice Center often includes a combination of improvement in laryngeal hygiene and medical management of contributing factors. We also offer behavioral cough suppression therapy, a treatment offered by upper airway-specialized speech-language pathologists that trains you to suppress the cough and eventually results in a reduction in or elimination of the urge to cough. This therapy can be
completed in person in the office or via telehealth.
