Capsaicin Spray to Treat Neuropathic Chronic Cough

Image by Daniel Risacher  in Wikipedia I recently learned of this unusual form of treatment to help with neuropathic chronic cough by respected laryngologist Dr. Robert Bastian . Capsaicin is what provides the heat in chili peppers and has been used alternatively as an irritant to induce cough in the pulmonary literature, but also numbness in chronic pain situations. As it pertains to laryngeal sensory neuropathy (LSN) or sensory neuropathic cough (SNC) , it does not actually fix anyth…

4/30/2015 0

Continue Reading

Whooping Cough Without the Whoop - The Bad Lingering Cough

Although I have been practicing medicine since 2000, the first time I diagnosed whooping cough was in 2011 and ever since, I have been diagnosing more and more cases each year thereafter. However, what makes these cases a little unusual is that for ALL cases of whooping cough I have diagnosed, there was no characteristic whoop for which it is named after. Rather, the common characteristics for all patients I have diagnosed include: • "Mystery" cough that has been going on f…

5/14/2014 0

Continue Reading

H. Pylori Infection Can Cause Urticaria and Angioedema!

Thanks to a recent blog post by medical blogger, Dr. Ves Dimov , I was made aware of how H. Pylori (Helicobacter pylori) infection of the stomach can cause chronic (idiopathic) urticaria as well as angioedema and that eradication of H. Pylori thru antibiotics and acid suppression can significantly improve the problem! For those who do not know what H. pylori is... It is a germ that is the most important cause of gastritis and peptic ulcer disease. It can be diagnosed by measurement of H. p…

8/03/2010 0

Continue Reading

Laryngeal Sensory Neuropathy (LSN) Chronic Cough Treatment Failure

Laryngeal sensory neuropathy (LSN) is a recently described condition felt to cause a chronic cough in patients when treatment for everything else ( allergies , asthma, reflux , etc) has been evaluated and managed. Treatment for this condition is with neuropathic medications including neurontin, elavil, lyrica, nortriptyline, etc. In the past few months, I have seen a few patients referred to me with chronic cough treated with these medications with minimal or no improvement. OR... the cou…

6/26/2010 15

Continue Reading

Botox for Chronic Cough

There have been a few reports that discuss the use of botox to achieve significant improvement, if not cure, in adult patients with a chronic cough due to sensory neuropathy. In one report , researchers presented 4 case studies in which cough relief occurred after a median of 7 injections with a mean dose of 4.0 Units per treatment session for a mean duration of 25.7 months. In  another report, Mayo researchers performed botox injection in 22 patients among which 50% reported improvement i…

5/20/2010 3

Continue Reading

Machine Gun Sneezing

ABC News on November 11, 2009 aired a story about a 12 year old girl with an unfortunate condition called " machine gun sneezing ". Apparently, she sneezes up to 16 times a minute all day except while sleeping and started after recovering from a mild cold. To be frank, it's a condition I've never seen before. Per an allergist interviewed for this story, the condition is extremely rare and "can be triggered by hundreds of causes, including allergies , sinus problems …

11/13/2009 0

Continue Reading