The NP I saw at Tang told me I should have been using an expectorant and cough suppressant more regularly when I had my month-long lingering crud. He gave me codeine + guafenisin and said that without suppressing the cough I was just letting my lungs stay irritated indefinitely and they wouldn't heal til I stopped coughing. I'm not sure how sound his logic was. The logic in my sentence above is abysmal but I'm not feeling very coherent.

I'd had a nasty cough for a month though (there was certainly some sort of bronchitis going on, just not bacterial) so it might have been more necessary in my case than usual.