Question:
Anyone have a chronic, hacking cough...yet not a smoker?

I'm wondering if anyone else has ever experienced this. I had a chronic, hacking cough for months and am not and have never been a smoker. One day I called my very well-educated, well-informed pharmacist, Mayme, and she suggested that if I am taking blood pressure meds, it could be something in the b.p. med called an "ace inhibitor" that could be causing the cough. I checked with my doc and sure enough, my b.p. med had an ace inhibitor in it. He switched me to another type of b.p. med and the coughing went away immediately. Has anyone else ever experience this?    — Annie H. (posted on March 31, 2002)

March 30, 2002
Yes, I had this happen to me a year or so ago. I had a severe cough and sure enough, it was because of my BP medicine. It was change and now the cough is gone. Unfortunately, there was a virus going around work and I caught it. I wound up giving myself a hernia with a bad coughing spell. Oh well.
   — Jennifer H.

March 31, 2002
Hi Annie, I have had this hacking cough now for about a month. It is making me asthmatic and I seem to hack the most when I try to talk. Went to PCP about two weeks ago and they put me on Levaquin, an anti-biotic that did nothing to help-doc said it was bronchitis, but no chest X-ray taken. So I am going to go back this week as I can't stand all this coughing. I, too, am not a smoker, but am not on blood pressure medicine either. I hope its not something more serious.
   — Cindy R.

March 31, 2002
ACE Inhibitors can definitely cause a dry cough, but there are several other meds that can also. Anything that would dry you out, like diuretics, would be suspect. Also, some anti-depressants can cause the cough. For Cindy, if you are taking any meds, look them up on the internet and see what side effects they might have. The ACE Inhibitors do cause a little bit of a cough for me, but it's tolerable and since it's the best BP med for me, I can put up with it. I can't say the same thing for one of the anti-depressants I once took.
   — garw