{"id":993,"date":"2020-06-01T15:10:39","date_gmt":"2020-06-01T19:10:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.allergy-associates.com\/?p=993"},"modified":"2021-02-03T13:37:19","modified_gmt":"2021-02-03T18:37:19","slug":"cough-and-asthma","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.allergy-associates.com\/?p=993","title":{"rendered":"Cough and Asthma"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>A recent article in the <em>Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology<\/em> discussed current research into why asthma patients cough.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The answer, as it seems to be to many complex questions, is multifactorial.&nbsp; The human brain is the source of a myriad of protective reflexes from blinking to coughing.&nbsp; Protecting the airway compels a complex and delicate neural network.&nbsp; Think about the high degree of neurologic coordination required for swallowing without aspirating, even though the esophagus and trachea lie against one another.&nbsp; There is no question that asthmatics have a more delicate (\u201chair trigger\u201d) cough reflex.&nbsp; What makes their cough-nerves more sensitive?&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It seems to be a function of both structural issues and functional issues.&nbsp; The main structural issue is airway narrowing, which is why asthmatics wheeze and have shortness of breath.&nbsp; The narrowing of the airway \u201ctugs\u201d on the cough-nerves and by stretching them makes them more sensitive.&nbsp; One example of this heightened sensitivity is coughing due to laughing.&nbsp; When we laugh, we move a greater volume of air in and out of our lungs and this in turn leads to very slight cooling of the airway.&nbsp; This slight cooling is perceived as an airway threat and hence the coughing.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The functional issue is inflammation.&nbsp; You can think of this as \u201cburning\u201d the cough-nerve fibers.&nbsp;&nbsp; Because protecting our airway is so important the cough-nerve fibers are unmyelinated; that is, they don\u2019t have the protective myelin coating that most nerves in the human body have.&nbsp; This makes them very vulnerable just as a bare copper wire would more easily spark.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Treating the cough of asthma boils down to expanding the narrowed airways and reducing inflammation.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A recent article in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology discussed current research into why asthma patients cough.&nbsp; The answer, as it seems to be to many complex questions, is multifactorial.&nbsp; The human brain is the source of a myriad of protective reflexes from blinking to coughing.&nbsp; Protecting the airway compels a complex and delicate neural network.&nbsp; Think about the high degree of neurologic coordination required for swallowing without aspirating, even though the esophagus and trachea lie against one&#8230;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"><a class=\"btn btn-default\" href=\"https:\/\/www.allergy-associates.com\/?p=993\"> Read More<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">  Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[422],"class_list":["post-993","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-cough-and-asthma"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.allergy-associates.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.allergy-associates.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.allergy-associates.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.allergy-associates.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.allergy-associates.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=993"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.allergy-associates.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/993\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":994,"href":"https:\/\/www.allergy-associates.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/993\/revisions\/994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.allergy-associates.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.allergy-associates.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.allergy-associates.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}