Medical question

[vvvexation]

How necessary are expectorants when one has a chest cough? I mean, do you get better faster if you cough up all the crud faster, or will it go away on its own even if you don't hasten the up-coughing process?

Comments

[tshuma]

It is sound logic: using a cough supressant means you cough less and thus irritate your lung tissue less, using an expectorant means that when you do cough, it's productive and gets the crap out of your lungs more quickly and completely than it does without it.

[fyfer.livejournal.com]

Yeah, true. I was just trying to figure out if expectorant and suppressant were too opposed to each other. But that makes sense.