The Common Cold and Congestion and Coughing

The common cold has many symptoms. One person can have more symptoms than another. The most common ones are nasal congestion and coughing, two symptoms that often cause fatigue. Here are the details if you want to know more about the common cold with coughing and congestion.

The essentials of nasal congestion

A stuffy nose during a common cold can be irritating and uncomfortable. This is the congestion of the nasal cavity. Inflammation of the nasal cavity linings constricts the air passages, making breathing difficult. As a result, the infected person does not get enough oxygen. An urgent care facility can help with the resulting fatigue. The constriction of air passages also makes mucous removal challenging, resulting in mucous accumulation. Nasal congestion often happens with headaches and a runny nose, preventing the individual from performing activities of daily living. It also affects a person’s productivity. People often mistake thick, sticky mucous as the reason behind nasal congestion. The true reason is the swelling of the tissue lining the nose. The body senses an infection and increases blood flow through the blood vessels in the nose. The increase in blood flow aims to fight the infection. Swelling occurs because the blood vessels dilate. Nasal congestion from a common cold will last as long as the infection lasts, often between five to 10 days. However, this congestion from allergies may last even longer. It will last as long as there is exposure to the allergen.

The essentials of coughing

Coughing is the body’s response whenever there is something in the airway. The body will try to expel the mucous, liquid, or food particles by coughing. Coughing is a quick sign of infection in a common cold. There is a dry cough at first., followed by hacking, and then a productive, mucous-filled cough, which is often more comfortable. Common cold viruses enter the body through the lining of the nasal cavity. The infection leads to the throat. That is why there is a sore throat whenever there is an upper respiratory tract infection. The immune system tries to fight this invasion by dispensing the inflammatory chemicals. Unfortunately, scientists say that these chemicals also activate coughing. Severe coughing occurs when there is damage to the linings of the air passages. It also happens when there is mucous production. Mucous can trigger nerve receptors. Therefore, a cough is a vagus nerve-activated reflex. The nerve endings sit at the larynx level. Cough cues should reach this far down into the air passages, causing the symptoms of a cough. The virus uses the coughing reflex to spread the newly generated virus offspring. Coughs often stop within three weeks. Some post-infectious or post-viral coughs can last for about eight weeks.