How does cough medicine stop a dry, tickly or wet cough?
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They don’t, I’m afraid. Over the counter cough medicines you can buy in the US are no more effective than a placebo (a fake medicine).
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC65295/
>Over the counter cough medicines for acute cough cannot be recommended because there is no good evidence for their effectiveness.
I had a class in college where this was discussed. The professor said it’s literally just sticky syrup coating the back of your throat. This offers a short lived feeling of relief and gives you something to cough up instead of just continually irritating your throat with dry hacking. You can get a similar effect from candy, although for me the menthol seems to help a little. Also, let’s not knock the benefits of placebos. Sometimes ignorance is bliss.
Here’s an anecdotal story: I’ve been hospitalised with pneumonia three times. The thing about pneumonia is that everything in your lungs has to be coughed out, sometimes over months.
Not once did any doctor give me, or recommend taking, a cough syrup.
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