What is causing my husband with Parkinson's coughing spells?

A couple of things come to mind. My mom takes a medication for her Demetia that causes her to have mouth movement which causes more saliva and not swallowing enough. Also she has pist nasal drip so that tickle in the back of her throat causes a cough as they don't recognize it as post nasal drip and then it leads to choking. So when she begins right away I tell her to close her mouth and swallow and right away it stops. Problem is you have to be next to them all day and talk them threw it all day.

Bonnie, is ur Mom or allergy medication? Mine is. Her nose ran constantly and she used tissues like crazy. Dr. recommnded Claritan. Has made a difference.

No she isn't. She's has post nasal drip for 30 years. But now since she has problems swallowi g it has become dangerous

Katinka, call the speech therapist right away and ask if the coughing could be related to his dysphagia, and if the therapist could see him ASAP.

A recommendation to another doctor might be in order, perhaps a pulmonary doctor, especially if the cough is productive. But if he seems to be choking, I'd start with a speech therapist.

I'd also call the neurologist (?) who treats for his Parkinson's.

There could be a variety of other issues as well - pollen in the air brought in when coming from outside, especially if he has allergic rhinitis and there are any cottonwood trees in the vicinity. They drop little balls of cotton for a few weeks in June and the miserable stuff gets in everything. I have to mask up just to mow the lawn. And once they get in the nasal or throat, they cause a lot of coughing.

It could also be an allergy to something in the house. Do you have a HEPA filter air cleaner that you can use? I use it when I clean - it helps collect the airborne dust particles.

But since he's on a dysphagia diet, has PD, there might be a change in his PD or something else might have developed. I wouldn't wait.

Thanks,
My husband is scheduled to see the speech therapist this week. It may very well be something in the house that is causing the cough. Tonight, at dinner, he only coughed when he attempted to drink a thickened liquid which it turned out was too thick. He has been working with this speech therapist for quite a while so we will see what she thinks about it. I will also contact his neurologist. Thanks for your advice!

What happened with me is an upper respiratory infection called bronchitis, which I've had several times throughout my life. Bronchitis is a very contagious airborne infection. This may or may not cause coughing spells, but you can also catch whooping cough, which is also airborne, something not to be ignored because you can't get rid of it on your own. I know, I tried over the period of a year as the upper respiratory irritation developed into a more aggressive infection, and finally into whooping cough. If your loved one is actually experiencing a coughing spell that takes his breath and he "whoops" at the end of a bad coughing spell just to catch his breath, please don't ignore this, get him to the hospital, this is very contagious and very dangerous because it can travel through the air and infect others. If you live in an apartment duplex or even a complex, be very wary that bring cough can also travel through the vent system like it did here when I got it. I had a neighbor who may have either had whooping cough or maybe someone visiting them had it, because I got it despite not being in contact with anyone at that time. I got this during the winter, and I'm kind of wondering if someone's kids had it because it traveled through the vents and I got it during the winter when I usually stay in pretty much all winter and I wasn't in contact with anyone at that time. It's been said adults usually don't die from whooping cough and are not badly affected, but I hate to differ because I almost came to the point of dying since it's progress over a very long period of time. Whooping cough is definitely very dangerous and it can actually kill you if you don't get rid of it. If you survived whooping cough, you probably have adult onset asthma in the form of cough variant asthma. Many people who have survived whooping cough have come down with asthma, I saw the blog board about sad stories where people have had whooping cough who now have adult onset asthma. It's been said that once you have asthma it never really goes away though it may go dormant but you still have it. I've heard of people who had the asthma as a child but supposedly don't have it now. I don't know so much about those cases as I do adult onset asthma caused by whooping cough, especially if you had it for a while before getting help. I'm not sure what all causes adult onset asthma, but you definitely want to look at this as a possibility.

Another thing you want to check is the bacteria on the patient's tongue, having a white or yellow coating on the tongue especially toward the back can and often does cause coughing spells. This can be confused with an asthma attack, definitely check the tongue, especially toward the back. If there's a white coating on the patient's tongue, it needs cleaned, the patient may notice a huge improvement.

Hi,I am sorry to hear about your husband's situation but it sounded so familiar.My father had a stroke and after that he could not swallow because the thing that blocks the food and water or even saliva from going into his lungs stopped working .He is on a feeding tube and doing alright,he has to spit out all his saliva as well.I put a liquid salution in his tube three times a day and also crush all his medications and put them through the tube as well.I hope my answer helps,let me know how he's doing.

Have his doctor check out his throat and lungs. So many possibilities!

If this cough happens to be cough variant asthma, remember that people who once didn't have a history of asthma can develop it later in life. It's called adult onset asthma, and one of the causes is whooping cough. I'm telling you from experience because I survived whooping cough and I now have asthma from it. Being diagnosed with asthma can come as a shock to any patient when they know they don't have asthma. They may even be puzzled to the point of telling the doctor, "but I don't have asthma!" The doctor can reply, "you do now!" I didn't have asthma either before whooping cough, and much to my surprise, I found that after the whooping cough was gone, the inhaler helped me, and I still use it. I don't know what they wrote in my records before, but I'm not sure I can go back to have it corrected from any mistakes. I don't know what the current or even past treatments for whooping cough really were, but I know for a fact I had whooping cough at the time and not asthma until the whooping cough was gone. It was a special pill that was helping me kill the bacteria causing the whooping cough, and during the whooping cough I really didn't need the inhaler so much as I did the pill, so the inhaler really wasn't used that much. It wasn't until sometime after I got rid of the hooping cough that I noticed a different type of coughing spell because it felt different than actual whooping cough. I knew there was something else going on, and it seemed funny the inhaler was helping whereas I didn't need it much when I had whooping cough. I don't know if the patient is currently taking other medications, but the best way to find out if it's asthma is to borrow an inhaler to see if the coughing actually stops. The most commonly used inhaler is albuterol, it's even used with nebulizer machines. The safest one though is the pocket rescue inhaler. This is the surest way to find out if a person has asthma because if the inhaler stops it, it's definitely asthma. My local hospital tried it on me, but it didn't really work as well when I had whooping cough. It wasn't until the whooping cough was gone that the asthma was later discovered. If you can borrow the inhaler for a moment long enough to see if the coughing stops, this would be a sure way to find out if it's asthma. Cough variant asthma is a type of very persistent cough, and inhalers with other related medications are used to help manage the condition. If the patient does have asthma, you really want to go for a nebulizer, it shouldn't be hard to get with an asthma diagnosis and a pocket rescue inhaler. Nebulizers can also help people with COPD like my elderly friend had when he was living. If the patient is started on breathing treatments, definitely help him keep up with the treatments. There are different attachments for nebulizers these days, one of them is a mask for patients who can't hold the mouthpiece. Whichever attachment you use, the idea is just to breathe in the mist that comes from the inhaler. What you can do with the mask is while the patient is having an attack, hold the mask in front of the patient during the attack and let him breathe in the mist. The mask is a very good source of delivering breathing treatments even if you can't get the mask on the patient for the mouthpiece in their mouth, at least have the mist coming from the nebulizer in front of their face so they can breathe it in. This is what helps during an attack if you're near the machine. I would've been on the machine last night but we had thunderstorms in the area, so I had to use several puffs of my rescue inhaler whereas I would've been on the machine had it not been for thunderstorms in my area. I highly recommend the nebulizer if you're patient has asthma, it's a big blessing

Swallowing problems. You may develop difficulties with swallowing as your condition progresses. Saliva may accumulate in your mouth due to slowed swallowing, leading to drooling.

The above is what I could find on possible coughing problems. It is somewhat related.