Dear XXXXX,

Thank you for posting your query at XXXXXXX I am Dr. Taher and I have read your question carefully. It appears that your 6-year old daughter's cough has not improved with physical treatment and home remedies. At this point, the main concern from your side would be if there is a need to see a doctor urgently.

First of all, it is necessary to know these basic facts about cough: when a child has cough without any accompanying runny nose or fever, it could either be due to a virus or due to any of the umpteen other causes of cough; the most likely causes of a dry cough are usually an irritant like exposure to smoke, pollutants, cigarette side-smoke, allergy to pollen, a choking episode that got some food particle stuck in one of the hidden locations at the back of the throat (or more rarely in the airway tubes below), or, sometimes, a bacterial throat or lung infection.

Since your child has no history of most of the above things (and if it is that you haven't told us the detailed history, you should be writing back to me with the details), viral cough is the most likely cause in her case.

You may continue doing all the things that you are already doing for her, but if, after a few more days, there is no relief, OR if there is a substantial change in the quality of cough, or if there are fresh symptoms like a runny nose, fever, breathing difficulty, vomiting, or restlessness, you should go urgently to her pediatrician. He may ask for radiographs (X rays), blood tests or the like to find out the cause of the change of symptoms.

If you wish to add a cough syrup to the remedies already going on, you may add either Triaminic cough syrup or Benadryl cough formula two or three times a day (5 ml per dose, orally) to reduce the cough. Don't use more of these as they cause sedation.

I hope she recovers soon. Take care, and feel free to ask me any follow-up queries if need be.

With warm regards,

Dr. Taher, M.D.

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