My mother is in the hospital with similar diagnosis. She has reoccuring pleural effusion which has not responded to treament with antibiotics. my mother has had a dry hacking cough for the las twenty years which I thought was caused by allergy or something in that area. I thimk it is allergy related because I had the same or similar type of cough which disrupted my life in many ways. The cough was so bad that a developed diverticulum in my throat. My Doctor, Dr Khan at the time decided to do a blood test to rule out allergy.The test came out positive, I received treatment and the cough was gone.