Suggest Treatment For Chronic Cough And Severe Neck Pain

Posted on Mon, 2 Jan 2017

Question: 64 yo white female, 5'9/312lbs, fatigue, increasing SOB with minimal ambulation x 8 mos, incidential dx of afib during routine MD visit 11/2015 now controlled with med, no other dx's. Currently pulmonary consult for SOB-CXR, labs, pul function test apt 1/12/17 for results. Also chronic cough, intermittent hoarseness, and L lateral neck pain with painful swallowing no difference/pain increase with food or saliva-pain x approx 3 mos. No swelling noted but able to palpate exact spot of pain L lat neck-no throat pain. No fever, ear pain-occ h/a. Heating pad doesn't decrease pain. This afternoon while drinking milk neck pain suddenly went from 4 to 10 and hoarseness increased. Have taken Tylenol 650mg with pain decrease from 10 to 7. Hoarseness has not changed. Does this sound concerning to you?

Answered by Dr. Prof. Kunal Saha (5 hours later)

Brief Answer:
Get the blood counts checked.

Detailed Answer:
Thanks for asking on HealthcareMagic.

I have gone carefully through the details provided. It is possible that you are suffering from a respiratory tract infection. The lump in throat, the hoarseness, the pain during swallowing, all point to a sore throat, which could be due to either a viral or bacterial cause and irrespective of treatment it is likely to last 5-7 days. Gurgling with lukewarm water should provide relief. On the other hand, apart from the pulmonary function test and others, I would insist you to get a complete blood count done. It will help in identifying whether you could be having a bacterial infection. If the results indicate a bacterial infection, the situation could be concerning and would need to be treated with proper antibiotics.

Let me know if I could help further.

Regards

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Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar