I just want to ride my bike.. :(
 

:( THAT"S ALL I WANT TO DO.... but i have this cough that won't bloody go away.... all i do is cough like a smoker and here and there phlegm pops up. I've had the darn thing since late November.... it's just pissing me off....and the temps for Wed. are looking great...party sunny and 10 C. I'm to afraid that if I bike i'm gonna make my situation worse. Anyhow...I just wanted to rant.

That sucks man. I hate feeling bad for no reason. See a doctor about it?

I've had pneumonia like three times now. Go to a doctor. You may have walking pneumonia, it does not go away, you need drugs.

GO TO A DOC!! No one should be coughing for that length of time.

Hope you get well fast! Toronto is a beautiful place and I am sure has some great riding!

Get Well!

I know the feeling, and for me it's only been since Friday. I got the most recent office plague, and it ruined me and my fiancee's weekend plans to get away to the Oregon coast for a couple days, and it's possibly killing my plans for a January century if I don't manage to kick this soon.

Go see a Doc. I smoke a pack of Camel Non-Filters a day and don't cough anything like that.

well...the cough started in late Nov...by just after Christmas it was practically gone...for a time i was on anti-biotics...but i doubt they even did anything....anyhow...after new years it just appeared.... rougher than it was the first time around.. i don't want to end up back on those meds

This year's cold is a nasty one. It doesn't seem to go away. A girl in the apartment above me has had it since November too. I had it about two weeks. I think light exercise helped me clear out the lungs and sinuses to get over it sooner. So if it's that cold, maybe try a light bike ride.

I've heard that as well...that once this years cold latches on, it stays for a long time.

My girlfriend is in bed right now, hasn't had a voice AT ALL for the last 4 days.

Enjoy it while it lasts.

When she recovers she'll probably talk twice as much to make up for the lost time.

+10000000

Yep, go see a doctor.

5 years ago I let a cold go too long. With health issues I am not exactly the smartest peanut in the turd.
Anyhow, it got to the point that I could barely swallow or drink. I recovered on my own but my doctor said that I should have had a steroid shot to open up my throat (or something along those lines).
Years later when it gets cold I tend to get sore throats. So, I sleep with a space heater.
I also loose my voice when I catch a cold.

Don't take antibiotics unless your healthcare practitioner is sure that you have a problem caused by bacteria. As always, lots of different viruses causing the usual upper respiratory problems all over the North American continent. It's not too late to get a flu vaccination, so that you don't get influenza.

Go back to the doctor. Why the hesitation about the meds? I had pneumonia three years in a row that started out with a head cold that went to bronchitis then pneumonia. Now I take a flu shot and I haven't had but one cold in 4 years and it didn't last too long. Thats way to long to cough like that.How about some of that musinex stuff you see on TV maybe that will help.

I had a lingering cough like that 3 years ago. I tried everything from Robitussin to anti-biotics and none of that worked. My wife then told me about Ginger Tea's and I figured what the heck! 3 months of coughing, I'll try anything. Lo and behold, after just the first cup I felt my coughing subside and it completely went away in a week or so.

From then on I drink Ginger Tea every time I start coughing because of a cold. It works.

mtnwalker, do you know what kind of Ginger Tea it was?

Go see the doc. I had a cough like that a few years ago that wouldn't go away. I finally went to the doctor because it was keeping me awake at night. Turns out I had bronchitis and pneumonia.

I've had the same thing since Thanksgiving Day. I finally got antibiotics New Year's Day and the cough and congestion are finally gone today.

Yeah, they will give you antibiotics, which you must finish taking to even hope to get rid of the nasties.

I know everyone has said "see the doctor," but I just want to say, "see the doctor," again.

You don't want to wind up in the hospital, mate. ;)

If you are worried about the costs a doctor visit is far less expensive than a hospital visit.

I will go see the doc after work. "DataJunkie" i'm not worried about the cost, I live in Canada. Thanks to Tommy Douglas, doc's are paid for by the state. America should try it.

Any crystalized Ginger Tea should work. The one's I've been taking has some asian language on it I can't read.

Thanks for the helpful advice, but there are a lot of obstacles that would make socialized health care a lot less successful in the US than it is in Canada.

Strangely enough, a few Canadians I know complain equally about how crappy their system is.
Though ours is definitely worst.
Now why is my name in quotes?

Like where would Canadians go to see a doctor?

http://www.healthcarebs.com/2007/09/...r-health-care/

Hey folks...well i just came back from the Doc. Total time roughly 30 minutes from the time I entered to the time I left..not bad if you think about it. I went to a 'walk in clinic'. Family doc closes at 4pm. Anyhow...she said everything seems fine...she didn't see any infections, didn't hear anything... when i asked why am i coughing, she suspects it's a remnant from my prior cold. Either way, i'm gonna call the family doc and make an appointment for tuesday.

Ringdangdoo..we Canadians can to to a walk in clinic (if available in an area...I have two near me). The wait times used to be real bad..but the last year or so, they've been reduced to 5-10 minutes on a quiet day. Busy days they can be up 30 minutes..but those are rare.

Canadians can also go to their family doctor (call ahead make an appointment and your golden) New Docs' who don't have a lot of patients yet, you can usually just walk in.

Lastly, if the ailment is severe, you can go to the hospital. I will admit though, hospital wait times are long... i'd say in a big city they average anywhere from 1-4 hours depending again on how busy it is and how severe your problem is. Obviously someone with a cold will wait, compared to someone with a heart attack. They triage(sp?) Those with life threatening problems get seen right away and those with minor problems go on the waiting list.

The thing is though, you can go and see a doc as many times as you like, get a 2nd and 3rd reference, and you will never pay for it. The concept is so foreign to me...paying for health care. I never cross the border even for a day without picking up some health insurance. It's kind of a shame. If I had to pay though to see a doc, i would never have gone to see them about this cold...i just would have ridden it out.

The main question here is... should I start riding again? or should I wait until this cough subsides on it's own? I've been hearing that the cough's of 2007-8 last a long time.

My symptoms have followed an identical chronology.

My theory, and I'm sticking to it, is that it's two different colds of slightly-above-average duration, one before Christmas and one after, that just seemed to be all one long illness with a break.

I've been riding to work the whole time, although I'm not the always the sharpest tack in the box.

Go to the doc, but don't insist on antibiotics. The doc will tell you if you need them. Colds are caused by viruses, and antibiotics do exactly nothing against viruses, they act against bacteria. Yet, people insist that the doctor "do something" even though there's nothing they can do against viruses. So they might fold and prescribe antibiotics you don't need. And all they do is to kill off your friendly intestinal bacteria which makes you even sicker, and the stuff you put into the sewers (or if you don't take the full course and you have bacteria) just kills the weak ones and the strong ones multiply.

However, if you DO have a bacterial infection, like strep throat or bacterial pneumonia or something, you really need antibiotics. Just let your doctor tell you what you need, don't insist on antibiotics.

Ghettocruiser, a lot of people i talk to have this on-going lingering cough. I plan to get a goodnights sleep tonight, wake up early and hopefully ride tomorrow. It'll be the first time in over two months...we'll see how things go. The temps will be somewhat mild at 8 degrees in the morning and dropping to 3 by the afternoon.