Cough a lot after recovering from Covid-19, has the virus spread to the lungs?

Mr. Nguyen Hung (34 years old, Ha Dong) has Covid-19 from 5/3. During the course of Covid-19, he showed signs of fever, cough, and fatigue. 5 days later, he did a quick test at home and got negative results, the signs of fever and fatigue also ended but he still had a lot of cough. A week after the test was negative, he continued to cough, especially at night. He tried folk methods such as sucking on ginger, honey or taking herbal medicine but there was no improvement.

Similarly, despite being negative for more than a week, the cough symptoms of Ms. Ha (30 years old, Thanh Xuan, Hanoi) still did not improve. She suspected that she was re-positive, so she took a quick test to check again and the result was still negative. She often sucked ginger, drank warm water to relieve the cough, but it was not effective. She was very worried whether coughing so much could mean that the virus had spread to her lungs.

Photo: VietNamNet

In this regard, BSCKII Nguyen Thu Huong – Head of the Covid-19 Prevention and Control Unit, Thanh Nhan Hospital, said that with the Omicron variant currently accounting for the majority of cases in Hanoi, there are usually respiratory symptoms. upper respiratory tract such as cough, sore throat, runny nose… Therefore, cough symptoms in Covid-19 patients are common in most patients.

According to doctor Nguyen Thu Huong, Covid-19 patients have symptoms of cough due to many reasons such as: sore throat, gastric juice from below stimulated also causes the patient to cough. In some cases, there is damage to the lungs and heart (patients have blood stasis in the heart, which stimulates the lungs to cause coughing).

Therefore, to determine for sure whether the patient has lung damage due to Covid-19 or not, it is necessary to base on the results of scans and tests to make an accurate diagnosis.

If the patient coughs a lot, drink plenty of water, drink 2 liters of water/day; Rinse mouth with physiological saline or clean water. Patients can use folk remedies ginger, garlic, rock sugar, honey to reduce cough… If the cough symptoms do not decrease, they can take cough medicine according to the doctor’s prescription.

According to Dr. Huong, cases of F0 with a lot of cough, cough and throat for a few hours are fine. But if the cough makes the patient uncomfortable, wakes up in the middle of the night or has trouble breathing, it is imperative that the patient is hospitalized.

Dr. Huong also warned that many people are now afraid that Covid-19 will affect their lungs when they are infected and have rushed to take antibiotics. The overuse of antibiotics is completely wrong. Cough in Covid-19 patients is caused by reflux syndrome or pulmonary fibrosis (seen in severe Covid-19 patients), so antibiotics will not be effective.

And according to Dr. Truong Huu Khanh – vice president of Ho Chi Minh City Infectious Diseases Association, the reason why patients after Covid-19 cough may be due to the patient’s own allergies, people with existing reflux disease, or by stimulation of the central nervous system along the respiratory tract causing coughing.

Therefore, to assess whether the virus attacks the lungs or not, the patient must go to the hospital for examination. If the cough is only mild, for a short time (several days), the patient can take cough medicine to treat symptoms or the cough will go away on its own. If the cough lasts 10 days, the cough is increasing, causing difficulty breathing, people have to go to the hospital to check.

Similarly, Doctor Hoang Son (F0 Support Team at home) also shared that most coughs after Covid-19 do not require medication. Patients need to practice rehabilitation with exercises to increase lung capacity (can refer to exercises on YouTube).

You can use herbal cough medicine or folk remedies such as sucking on honey lemon. Patients should seek medical attention when there are signs of chest pain, shortness of breath, and SpO2 readings are lower than normal (< 96%) or persistent cough.

Ngoc Trang