Chronic Cough for 1 year
I am 25F, 5’5, 145lb.
My main health issues are Asthma (since I was very little) with a few asthma attacks and trips to urgent care throughout the years, but it is relatively controlled right now; it is mainly triggered by allergies, sickness, sometimes physical exertion; and Multiple Sclerosis, DX in October 2023 with an almost 2 month hospitalization due to an intense relapse which included numbness and weakness in half of my body, vision issues, hearing decreased in one of my ears, loss of fine motor movements, etc. (no cough as a symptom) and on Ocrevus 2x a year.
I have had a consistent cough for almost a year now and was hoping someone might have some ideas as to what might be going on.
The cough is mainly dry/ itchy throat kind of cough, but in the morning there is bright green phlegm. It does not particularly feel like an “asthma” cough, nor do I feel out of breath/ chest tightness/ etc with the cough.
Here is the sequence of events:
May 2025, I got sick. Then, while I was still sick, I got my Ocrevus infusion; after which I got much worse. This sickness ended and there was a month or two of residual cough. By July my cough subsided.
August 2025 I moved to San Francisco. Literally day 1 I started coughing. It was pretty bad: would often keep me up at night, I’d have to leave meetings to cough and get water, etc.
I mainly tried to mitigate it by drinking a lot of water, having honey, tea, or Nyquil-type OTC meds.
After a few months, I went to urgent care. First doctor I saw said it was most likely allergies. He recommended I take antihistamines. That helped it a bit. But it persisted.
The second doctor I saw a few months later, a PCP, reaffirmed it was probably allergies. Recommended I take Flonase daily. It persisted.
Third doctor, a month or two ago, was an ENT. Also said allergies. Recommended a sinus rinse. Helped a little but not that much.
Now recently saw a pulmonologist. He created a pretty solid plan to get to the bottom of this. Said it could be allergies but also could be Asthma related or GERD.
We did a full allergy panel and planned to up my otc allergy meds / flonase/ BREO inhaler gradually, one at a time. He also said there was a little bit of a “fuzzy area” on one of my chest CT scans a few years ago, so we planned to do another just to rule anything more out. If nothing here helps we’re gonna treat for acid reflux even though I have no other symptoms.
The allergy panel came back and literally no local allergies besides cats and dogs which I already knew. So my suspicion that I’m allergic to something in the Bay doesn’t seem to be the case.
Waiting to take my CT Scan next week.
It’s definitely better than when I first got here. But some days are better than others. Last night I couldn’t even sleep and had the worst night ever because of it. In three separate meetings this week the other person asked if I needed water. People often ask if I’m okay. It’s embarrassing and tiring.
This how now been 11 months of a cough. I feel like that’s cause for concern. But people just keep telling me allergies.
Again it’s slightly better than when I got here but definitely DAILY, with some days better and some days worse. and some days are so bad. People notice. My life feels disrupted.
I’m so tired and feel so lost at this point.
Medications: Daily: antihistamine, flonase, junel fe.
As needed: albuterol inhaler, DELSYUM, Cepacol