What are the steps for taking the right medicine for a cough and cold caused by stress?
- Understand the cause of your disease
- Consult with a trusted physician
- Heed the doctor’s advice
- Regularly monitor your health
Illnesses such as coughs and colds can be caused by a lot of things but taking the wrong medication for either can do more harm to your health than good. It shouldn’t be surprising to find out that medicine for cough and cold come in different varieties. Each of these medicine types aims to get rid of the cause of the disease. There are also some that aim to alleviate symptoms to make it slightly easier for those who are afflicted.
With hundreds of medicines for coughs and colds available on the market, choosing the right one for the illness that you have can be quite the challenge. You can use your go-to medication, but that may not always work, especially if your illness is caused by stress. If you want to know more about coughs and colds caused by stress and the right steps in treating them, then continue reading below!
Understand the Cause of Your Disease
You might find it hard to believe but coughs and colds can actually be caused by stress. In the case of colds, stress acts more like a fuel to the condition rather than a primary cause itself. Studies have shown that people are more likely to catch a cold if they’re under long-term stress that has lasted for at least a month and stemmed from significant problems such as getting fired or losing a loved one.
The same can be said for coughs, albeit with a slight difference. A cough can actually be brought forth by undue stress. This is what the experts call an anxiety cough. Symptoms for this type of cough include feeling a slight tickle in your throat or the urge to cough that usually comes and goes or is indefinitely persistent.
In addition, you may feel the symptoms after an experiencing anxiety, fear, nervousness, or high stress – or for no reason at all! It’s also important to remember that these symptoms can range in intensity and will usually subside when at rest.
That said, these symptoms aren’t set in stone. People respond to anxiety differently so you may also have a unique experience that would make it difficult to identify the condition.
Consult with A Trusted Physician
The only way to be 100% sure of your condition is to consult with a trusted and reliable physician. An expert should be able to tell you whether your cough and/or cold is caused by stress, a virus, or something else entirely.
A virus-induced disease should be treated with regular medicine for coughs and colds while diseases brought about by stress may be a different matter altogether. Aside from any required medication, you may also be taught some stress-reducing exercises that you will have to do if you ever feel any kind of anxiety or stress that can trigger a cough or make you more vulnerable to colds.
Heed the Doctor’s Advice
After your doctor’s consultation, it’s only logical to heed whatever advice the expert has given you. If you were prescribed any kind of medicine, it is in your best interest to go out and buy those medications and take them accordingly.
As for the stress-reducing exercises, you should also do them whenever necessary so your condition doesn't worsen. In the long run, these practices may keep you from contracting coughs and colds caused by stress in the future.
Regularly Monitor Your Health
Treating your condition doesn’t stop with taking medication; it stops when your body regains its normal function. The only way to check this is to regularly monitor your health after the event.
If your body starts to feel better each passing day, then you can rest assured that you’d be cough- and/or cold-free in a matter of days. If the conditions persist, however, then you may want to go back to your doctor for a check-up. You may have been misdiagnosed or the medicine may not be taking any effect. Either way, it’s not a good sign and you must immediately resolve the problem before it turns into something worse.
Key Takeaway
The steps in taking the right medicine for coughs and colds starts with understanding the root cause of your disease. Viruses are the usual culprits for these conditions, but they’re not always the reason. It pays to know what other things can cause these common conditions so that you at least have an idea of what steps to take next.
That said, avoid taking matters into your own hands by purchasing and taking your go-to cough and cold medicine. With that done, all you have to do is heed the doctor’s advice and then monitor your health to check if the medication work or not.
These steps aren’t only applicable to cough and cold but to other conditions as well, so you should probably keep them in mind in case you suffer any illness or disease in the future!