Causes and treatment of dry cough in a child without fever

Causes of dry cough in a child without fever

A cough is a kind of shield for the body. With its help, it removes the remains of viruses and microbes from the respiratory tract. There are many reasons for the appearance of a dry cough without fever: from a cold to a foreign object, such as a bead, getting into the respiratory tract. Let's look at the main ones.

• Allergy.
• Acute viral diseases (ARVI)
• Laryngitis, tracheitis, bronchitis.
• Pneumonia.
• Previous illnesses that were poorly treated.
• Chronic diseases.
• Ingestion of foreign objects into the respiratory tract.
• Chemical poisoning.
• Nerves or nervous cough.

Only a qualified specialist can correctly name the cause of a dry cough in a child. Therefore, if symptoms of a respiratory disorder appear, it is important to consult a doctor as soon as possible. Prolonged cough without sputum production indicates clinical pathology. You simply cannot close your eyes to him.

Dry cough in children: causes

There are many factors that can trigger the development of dry cough in children.

You cannot treat a cough without identifying its causes. Such treatment will be counterproductive. First, the pediatrician finds out what exactly caused the child’s cough. It is not always an infection.

Medicines for dry cough for children differ in the nature of their action. Treatment for a dry cough can be varied: it is either suppressed or expectorants are given to remove phlegm. If the causes are not correctly identified, treatment may be harmful.

Causes of dry cough:

• Infection. One of the most common causes of dry cough in a child. An infection (viral or bacterial) causes an immune response from the body, which is accompanied by swelling of the nasal mucosa, sneezing, cough (dry or wet), headache, and sometimes fever.
• Diseases of the bronchi and lungs. A dry cough can occur with pleurisy, bronchitis, and pneumonia. With pleurisy, the serous membrane around the lungs becomes inflamed. With this disease, a dry cough is accompanied by severe pain in the chest. With pneumonia, a dry cough and fever are common.
• Rhinitis or sinusitis. With rhinitis, cough occurs due to irritation of the throat mucosa. Mucus from the nose flows into the throat and causes inflammation. For this reason, it is easy to confuse a dry cough with a wet cough due to the mucus that drains from the nose.
• Pharyngitis or laryngitis. A dry cough with pharyngitis occurs due to inflammation of the pharyngeal mucosa, and with laryngitis - due to inflammation of the larynx.
• Tuberculosis. This is a dangerous and highly contagious disease caused by Koch's bacillus. It affects not only the lungs, but also joints and other organs. Tuberculosis can take different forms, but is often accompanied by a severe cough.
• Foreign body. A foreign body in the respiratory tract can cause shortness of breath, coughing, and cyanosis. This is a dangerous condition that requires immediate medical attention.
• Allergies and asthma. An allergic cough can be quite severe and suffocating. In this case, treating it with expectorants is useless. It is necessary to stop the child’s contact with the allergen and thoroughly moisturize and clean the mucous membranes of the nose and throat.

Signs of a dry cough

It must be remembered that cough is not a disease, but a symptom of another disease.

A dry cough is considered dangerous because it injures and irritates the airways, but does not remove mucus.

Dry cough has its own varieties. It can be acute, subacute and chronic. Acute dry cough lasts no more than 2-3 weeks, subacute - several weeks to 2 months, chronic - more than 2-3 months.

In any case, a child with a dry cough should be shown to a pediatrician. But there are a number of alarming symptoms that should not be ignored. Postponing a visit to the doctor and self-medicating can be dangerous for the child’s health.

Symptoms of dry cough:

• The cough is debilitating and painful. If a child complains of chest pain, coughs frequently, and cannot sleep at night, he should be seen by a doctor immediately. This could be pneumonia or pleurisy.
• The cough begins unexpectedly without other symptoms. If the cough occurs in attacks, but for no reason and is accompanied by suffocation, you should immediately contact your pediatrician. Such symptoms often accompany a foreign body in the respiratory tract. Children under 3 years old often try to swallow something and chew on toys.
• Cough until vomiting. It happens that the cough is so strong that it provokes a gag reflex. This condition is dangerous for the child due to dehydration.
• The cough is accompanied by other symptoms. The cough itself may not be too strong, but if the child’s temperature rises and persists, weakness, lethargy, and poor appetite appear, he should be shown to a doctor.
• Severe allergic reaction. An allergic cough can develop into asthma and an attack of shortness of breath, and can also be accompanied by swelling and rash. This is a dangerous condition, as swelling of the larynx can lead to asphyxia. A severe allergy attack must be relieved as quickly as possible.
• The cough lasts a long time and becomes stronger. With flu and colds, the cough lasts no more than 2-3 weeks. If it continues after recovery, becomes stronger, or causes pain, you should consult a doctor for examination.

A dry cough is often accompanied by symptoms such as sore throat, sore throat, change in voice, pain when swallowing, fever, swelling of the nasal mucosa, and headache.

Symptoms of dry cough

Many will unmistakably name the main symptom of a dry cough - the absence of sputum. But not only this sign indicates the presence of the disease. A dry cough has a characteristic barking sound. This cough forms in the larynx, making it difficult for the child to breathe; with prolonged exposure to the body, such a cough can cause the formation of a diaphragmatic and inguinal hernia, because the abdominal wall is very tense.

The child may complain of soreness and tickling in the throat and a feeling as if something is interfering. In severely advanced cases, wheezing can be heard even without a stethoscope.

A wet cough removes harmful mucus from the body. Therefore, after clearing the child’s throat, he feels relieved. This does not happen in cases of dry cough. Cough provokes coughing, injuring the larynx and the general condition of the child.

A child who is tormented by a dry cough refuses to eat, complains of body aches and most often begins to be capricious.

Features of cough treatment in children

The cause of an unpleasant cough can be a common cold while walking or even when ventilating the room. Symptoms include dry mouth, raw mucous membranes, and soreness. There is no fever during illness, so cough medicine for children only eliminates the symptoms themselves. It is forbidden to use those drugs that block the source of cough, because they have a narcotic effect. Depending on the severity of the disease and its varieties, certain medications are used.

Contains 6 g of sucrose per 10 ml dose. This medicinal product contains small amounts of ethanol, less than 100 mg per 10 ml dose. Side effects. This medicine has no known side effects. If you get any side effects, talk to your doctor, pharmacist or nurse. This includes any possible side effects not listed on this sheet.

Keep out of the reach of children. Cough is a symptom, not a disease in itself, and is therefore associated with various possible causes, not all of which are serious. Here, Sister Lillian identifies the different types of coughs and how best to treat them. Cough is often accompanied by or part of persistent mucus secretions from the airway membranes, and this can usually be treated fairly quickly with lifestyle and dietary changes.

Dry cough

It is known that coughing attacks without sputum production are called the dry course of the disease, in which symptoms of tickling and vomiting appear. The attack can be barking, severe, not due to a cold, but due to physiology, when the baby tries to clear the bronchi of foreign bodies. This course is characterized by moments when the child cannot calm down, so medicine for dry cough for children is designed to relieve irritation from the mucous membrane.

There are 5 different types of cough

This is when you hear mucus in the airways when your baby breathes, or you may see it because your baby has a runny nose or is coughing or vomiting mucus. This mucus will be mostly profuse, and while any color is possible, it is not so thick or sticky that it cannot be ruled out.

Antitussives of combined and central action

No or very little mucus is expelled from the airways by a dry cough, so your child does not cough. It is rare to have a free-running nose and not hear it in the airway when your baby breathes, although his voice may be very nasal and altered from normal.

Wet

When the dry type of disease turns into inflammation of the bronchi, it becomes wet and requires other treatment. Symptoms include sputum production, chest type of disease, and pain in the lungs. A medicine for wet cough for children is designed to reduce the viscosity of sputum, improve its removal from the bronchi, helping to clear mucus. In this type, the use of drugs that suppress the centers of attacks is contraindicated, because stagnation of sputum can cause serious complications.

It is associated with a dry cough, although productive mucus may be produced. A thin cough is recognized when a child coughs during a coughing episode that sounds painful and is often accompanied by dry retina and debilitating fatigue. This cough is mainly caused by postnasal drip and comes from constant throat clearing.

A cough that comes in spasms and then does not last for a long time can be called spasmodic. Generally there will be a chest infection or a lower respiratory condition such as croup or bronchitis, and the cough feels painful. A cough is either caused by irritation of the airways or an attempt to force something out of the throat or chest. There are a number of possibilities, and once again not all are mutually exclusive.

Allergic

A dry paroxysmal cough can be allergic when foreign bodies enter the children's body, causing immune rejection. This could be plant pollen, pet dander, or dust particles. Symptoms include a red throat and no fever. Treatment requires the use of antihistamines, which facilitate the body's transfer of allergens and reduce their harmful effects. To relieve bronchospasm, which invariably accompanies allergies, special complex remedies are used.

Causes of dry cough

Excess mucus irritates your baby's throat or chest, causing a coughing reaction. Mucus is produced by the membrane lining of the airways and always contains a small amount of moisture. Problems arise if the body experiences excess mucus to try to remove an irritating or allergenic substance, or an infection occurs because mucus is a good environment for the growth of bacteria and viruses. Additionally, the early years of life tend to be more painful, with colder and runnier noses than later in life.

Treatment of dry cough in a child

IMPORTANT! A doctor should treat a child’s dry cough by monitoring the patient’s breathing, throat condition, heartbeat and general condition. If necessary, an x-ray and an ECG are prescribed. You need to be prepared that hospitalization is often recommended for a dry cough, since in children it often signals bronchitis and pneumonia, which are best treated with close medical supervision.

How can I alleviate my child’s condition before a specialist arrives?

1. Limit physical activity, as running provokes new attacks.
2. Avoid foods that irritate the mucous membrane: oranges, chocolate, seeds, pepper and spicy foods. It is better to feed with broth, cereals and purees.
3. Give more liquids: warm water, milk, tea.
4. Ventilate the room more often, but do not allow the baby to be in fresh cold air.
5. If parents are absolutely sure that the cause of their child’s cough is a cold, they can give him lozenges. They alleviate conditions by reducing the cough reflex.
6. If you have an inhaler, it is recommended to breathe. Lazolvan and Beredual are most often prescribed. But you can breathe in regular saline if you don’t know the dosage or are not sure that this medicine will suit your child.
7. You can give well-known medications available without a doctor's prescription, for example, mucaltin.
8. Get a massage. Massage produces better phlegm, and there are also special breathing exercises against coughs.

We recommend: Types and varieties of sore throat in children

Tablets for dry cough for children over 3 years old

For children over 3 years old, dry cough can be treated with tablets. Below are the most inexpensive and effective of them:

1. Mukaltin . This product contains an extract from marshmallow. The drug has an anti-inflammatory and expectorant effect. These tablets are prescribed for dry cough and hard sputum in children suffering from tracheobronchitis and emphysema. Give the child half a tablet, previously diluted in 1⁄4 glass of water, 2 to 3 times a day. Mucaltin is not prescribed to children with diseases of the gastrointestinal tract. Overdose may cause side effects such as allergies, nausea and vomiting.
2. Bromhexine . The product dissolves the secretion in the bronchi and quickly removes it from the respiratory tract. This medicine is indicated for acute and chronic bronchitis, bronchial asthma, cystic fibrosis and tracheitis. A single dosage of the drug for children over 3 years old will be 2 mg (no more than 3 times a day). It should be remembered that this drug should not be given to a child along with codeine-containing drugs. In addition, side effects may occur in the form of dizziness, bronchospasm, cough and headaches.
3. Thermopsol . Sodium bicarbonate in combination with thermopsis herb reduces the viscosity of sputum in children and relieves them of dry cough. The drug can be used for bronchitis and tracheobronchitis. The maximum daily dose of the drug is 3 tablets, and the therapeutic course should last no more than 4 days.

The medications listed above may cause allergic reactions. Therefore, caution must be exercised when taking them.

Treatment of dry cough with traditional methods

Traditional methods such as mustard plasters, cupping and rubbing should be treated with caution. Because it can seriously harm the baby’s health. Breathing over potatoes will not relieve a dry cough either. And even vice versa, this can provoke the formation of mucus in the lungs, which will contribute to the development of other dangerous diseases.

And on the contrary, gargling with herbs: plantain, coltsfoot

You can try to alleviate the patient's condition by giving him honey. It is known to be a natural antibiotic. But we must not forget that this is a highly allergenic product. Therefore, you need to give it half a teaspoon per day.

The most effective folk remedies for coughs

Folk remedies for coughs in children often work better than some drugs from the pharmacy. In addition, their composition is completely natural and does not contain tiny substances harmful to the body:

1. Carrot drink . It is necessary to mix 50 ml of juice squeezed from this root vegetable with 5 tsp. honey or sugar. Pour this homemade medicine into a jar and close the lid. Give the child 1 tbsp. from 2 to 5 times a day.
2. Glycerin with vegetable oil . To prepare this home remedy, mix 20 ml of any vegetable oil, juice from one lemon and 2 tbsp. honey Mix well and give the baby 3 to 6 times a day, 0.5 tsp. To increase the therapeutic effect, you can add 0.5 tsp to the product. soda
3. Egg milk drink . Break one egg into half a glass of warm milk and add a little sugar. This remedy should be divided into 2 equal halves and given to the child to drink before lunch and dinner.

It is recommended to give all the remedies listed above to a child for no more than 5 days.

Possible complications

A prolonged dry cough can lead to complications such as chronic bronchitis, pneumonia, otitis media, laryngitis, pharyngitis. All this is accompanied by severe swelling, which can lead to difficulty breathing.

Also, if a child coughs for a long time, the temperature may rise sharply, nasal congestion and ear pain will appear - this indicates the beginning of an inflammatory process in the body.

A cough with chest pain with thick purulent sputum or blood also indicates serious complications that have begun in the body.

Secrets of Doctor Komarovsky

What's not allowed?

• The first thing the TV doctor pays attention to is that you should not treat a dry cough with expectorants advertised on TV, like ACC. The problem with a dry cough is that it does not produce phlegm, and any expectorant contributes to the formation of phlegm in the lungs. Why form it there, if it coughs up at the same time, it still won’t. And coughing attacks can only become stronger and more frequent.
• Komarovsky believes that children’s airways are not sufficiently formed to fully expectorate sputum. Therefore, it accumulates and provokes bronchitis and pneumonia.

What do you need?

• Komarovsky recommends dressing warmly and letting cool and clean air into the room. But the room temperature should not be less than 16 degrees.
• The corresponding air humidity is 40-70%.
• Make sure your baby breathes through his nose and not his mouth.
• Drink more warm water.

Dr. Komarovsky claims that drinking plenty of fluids is much more effective than expectorants.

Children's dry cough without fever

If a child coughs, but does not have a fever or other signs of a cold, it is logical to assume that some kind of irritant, a foreign body, simply got into his throat. Such an irritant can have different sizes: it can be a part of a children's toy, a piece of food, or just dust. A child's dry cough without fever usually begins abruptly and is often accompanied by signs of suffocation. In this case, it is important to quickly and delicately, if possible without frightening the child, provide him with first aid: place him on your knee with his head and body down, open his mouth and clear his throat, making several sliding blows from top to bottom in the area between the shoulder blades. Even if the object quickly pops out and the coughing stops, it is better if you call a doctor - you need to check the airways to make sure they are not damaged.

A child's dry cough without fever can also occur in infants up to one year old. It usually starts in the morning. The function of such a cough is to clear the baby’s upper respiratory tract, in which phlegm has accumulated overnight. It is normal for children of this age to cough several times a day.

Disease prevention

Since one of the common causes of dry cough is allergies, it is necessary to limit the child’s consumption of foods that cause a spasmodic reaction in him. Give more water. Ventilate the room more often, do wet cleaning twice a week. Walk more in the fresh air, but try not to get too cold. Make sure your feet are warm. This is external prevention.

Physiological ones include cough prevention with breathing exercises and special massage. These are done in special medical institutions and sanatoriums, you can take courses and start doing them yourself with your child. It is also practiced to treat coughs by visiting salt caves and, of course, there is no better cure for all diseases than a trip to the sea.

What medications are given to children for dry cough?

1. Libexin tablets are best used when cold symptoms appear. They act on nerve receptors, inhibiting the cough reflex, but do not depress the respiratory center. Tablets can be given to preschoolers.

2. The herbal preparation “Linkas” in the form of syrup has an expectorant, antitussive, bronchodilator, and antispasmodic effect. This is a cough medicine for children over one year of age who do not have diabetes.

3. Bithiodine pills have a peripheral effect on cough receptors and do not have narcotic components or any side effects. Therefore, they can be prescribed to children.

4. Stoptussin tablets are antitussive drugs and have a mucolytic effect due to butamirate and guaifenesin. They have a number of contraindications and are prescribed to adolescents over 12 years of age.

5. Bronholitin syrup does an excellent job of coughing, reducing sputum production and dilating the bronchi. Suitable for children from three years old. Despite its wide range of uses, this medicine has a number of contraindications and side effects.