Chronic Cough May Be Due to Obstructive Sleep Apnea!

A new study was published in the April 2010 journal Cough entitled "Chronic cough and obstructive sleep apnea in a community-based pulmonary practice."

Apparently 44% of patients with a chronic mysterious cough were found to have obstructive sleep apnea. In these patients, 93% had cough improvement when the obstructive sleep apnea was corrected!

Read the abstract here.

Of course, there are many other causes of chronic cough including reflux, asthma, allergies, etc. In rare cases, when all else comes back normal, the cough may be due to laryngeal sensory neuropathy.