hi I'm dr. David Hill and today we're
going to talk about how to get rid of
post nasal drip and cough what do we
mean when we say post nasal drip well
it's pretty straightforward the nose is
connected to the back of the throat and
when you get a runny nose the mucus and
secretions drip down the back of the
throat that can be really annoying it
can cause some sore throat and as that
stuff drips down into the lungs you have
a reflex to COFF it back up and get it
out of the lungs so post nasal drip can
also cause cough getting rid of it
depends on what is the cause there are
several things that can cause post nasal
drip the most common is probably a cold
medicine we call that a viral upper
respiratory infection or a viral Rhino
sinusitis and really the only thing to
do for that is wait until it's over rest
will help a vaporizer man make you or
your child more comfortable if they're
having this some adults find help with a
neti pot which is like this tea pot it
almost looks like a like a genies
Lantern and use it to introduce a little
bit of saline or salt water up into the
nasal passages that can help open them
up and wash them out a little bit but
don't overdo that either anything can be
overdone so several times a day is fine
but every five minutes is probably way
too much in children the use of the neti
pot has not been as well studied and
very few children are able to really
tolerate it and cooperate adequately
with it now in young infants you can use
a little bit of nasal saline just a
little salt water dribbled in the nose
two or three drops and sucked back out
after a few seconds with a suction bulb
which may help clear the nasal passages
now if you're running stuffy nose and
call for coming from a sinus infection
how do you know well they've probably
been going on for more than 10 to 14
days you may have had a fever for
greater than three days or a fever
greater than 104 degrees in these cases
we often use antibiotics whether the
antibiotics work is another question all
together in children there's some
evidence that antibiotics can help with
a bacterial sinus infection like I just
described in adults the evidence
not as good so while we do it frequently
you might talk to your doctor and say
hey are you really sure this is going to
help now if this is from allergies there
are some great allergy medicines out
there the best are the nasal sprays with
steroids in them fluticasone or Flo nice
is now over it's not over the counter
but it is check so it's inexpensive and
it works fantastic but there are several
other competing brands most of them are
more expensive because they're still
branded but they work great an
antihistamine can be a helpful medicine
as well the most common in popular right
now are cetirizine zyrtec or loratadine
which is sold branded as claritin so you
can use those they don't tend to make
people quite as drowsy as some of the
older antihistamines and they last
longer it may be difficult to tell which
thing you've got you may have two or
three going on at once so if you're a
post nasal drip and call for not getting
better relatively quickly or if there's
something unusually severe about them
for gosh sake check with your doctor and
see what needs to be done talking about
relieving post nasal drip and cough on
dr. David Hill