Is the cough just caused by a cold?

After two weeks of dry cough, Uni-President Group President Kao Ching-yuan was diagnosed with lung tumor by a doctor.
Do you often take coughing lightly? Be careful, a big crisis may be hidden...
Kao Ching-yuan, president of Uni-President Enterprises Group, who pays great attention to health preservation and rarely smokes, went to the hospital for a check-up due to a dry cough that lasted for two weeks. He unexpectedly discovered a 2-centimeter tumor in the upper left lobe of his lung and underwent immediate surgery and treatment.
Have you ever thought that a small physical warning sign may lead to a major physical crisis?
Coughing causes little physical pain and is often easily ignored.
For example, in the fall when the weather turns a little cooler, if you hear someone coughing, "Do you have a cold?" may be the first thing you suspect.
However, a cough is more than just a sign of a cold.

"Coughing and wheezing are the two most common symptoms of respiratory diseases," said Kuo Shou-hsiung, director of the Department of Thoracic Medicine at National Taiwan University, pointing out that all chest diseases and lung diseases can have these two symptoms.
As for coughing, in addition to bronchitis caused by colds, other diseases may be caused by a variety of diseases, ranging from pneumonia, asthma, tuberculosis to lung cancer... Even taking certain types of high blood pressure medications can have the side effect of coughing.
However, "if you don't have a cold, fever, sore throat, etc., and your cough persists for more than two weeks for no reason, you should seek medical attention to find out the cause," Guo Shouxiong reminded.
Especially for people who have a long-term cough, if the pattern or appearance of their cough changes, they should be especially careful.
For example, a heavy smoker will cough over a long period of time, but there should not be bloodshot eyes all the time; or in addition to coughing and phlegm, he may have started to wheeze more noticeably recently.
Or a middle-aged man in his forties, who recentlycoldIt caused pneumonia, fever, and cough. I went to the hospital for X-rays and treatment, but the cough didn't get better after more than two months. It might not just be pneumonia.

In order to help doctors slowly find out the real cause of the disease from the clue of "coughing", Guo Shouxiong suggested that when seeking medical treatment, patients can tell the doctor:
1. How long have you been coughing?
Be clear about the "time". For example, if you have been coughing for a month or two weeks, do not tell the doctor vague words such as "coughing for a long time" or "soon".
2. Under what circumstances does coughing occur?
Do you cough during the day or at night? Do you cough in the first half of the night or the second half of the night? Do you cough after exercising? Or do you cough after lying down and sleeping for a while? These can help doctors judge the symptoms.
For example, asthma patients cough most severely at four or five in the middle of the night or before dawn; lung cancer patients cough at all times of the day and night; patients with bronchiectasis usually cough all day long, but have a lot of phlegm after getting up in the morning.
3. Do you have phlegm?
If it is a wet cough (with phlegm), it is usually caused by an inflammatory problem, such as bronchitis; as for lung cancer patients, in theory they usually tend to have a dry cough (without phlegm).
4. What does a cough look like?
Is it a throat-clearing cough or a short burst of coughing?
If it is a throat-clearing cough, it may not be a cough, but may be caused by talking too much or havingRhinorrhoeaproblem.

A small cough carries a lot of knowledge. Can you still ignore it?
Why does a lung tumor cause coughing?
If something irritates the bronchus, it will cause coughing. The scientific name of lung cancer is "bronchial cancer", which means that the tumor grows from the bronchus. Of course, it "may" cause coughing, but it does not necessarily mean coughing.
Many patients have no symptoms in the early stages of lung cancer. Even if the lung cancer has grown quite large, there are no signs of coughing. "It depends on where the tumor is," explained Kuo Shou-hsiung, director of the Department of Thoracic Surgery at National Taiwan University.

If the tumor grows in a large bronchus, even a small tumor will block the airflow. Even in the early stages of lung cancer, it will cause greater irritation and easily induce coughing. If it grows in a more marginal or small bronchus, it will not block the airflow and cause less irritation, so it may not cause coughing.
Lung cancer is not easy to detect early, but if you have unexplained cough or difficulty breathing, or have had a respiratory disease in the past that caused coughing, and now the cough pattern has changed (for example, the cough is more severe, there will be "wheezing", or there is phlegm or blood), you should pay special attention.

Should I get an X-ray?
Guo Shouxiong pointed out that the annual chest X-ray of the average person is not very helpful in early detection of lung cancer, especially since X-ray examinations can only see 80% of the lungs.
However, for high-risk groups such as heavy smokers or those exposed to polluted industrial exhaust, annual X-rays are still helpful for early detection of physical abnormalities.
When a doctor suspects that a patient may have signs of lung tumor, he or she will arrange for the patient to undergo more detailed CT scans for further confirmation.
In addition, in recent years, the Japanese medical community has tended to directly perform CT examinations on high-risk groups, which is very helpful in detecting small tumors.

6 Tips to Protect Your Lungs
1. Quit smoking and stay away from secondhand smoke.
2. Install and use the range hood correctly and replace it regularly.
3. When cooking food, try to avoid inhaling fumes. Reduce frying, stir-frying, and deep-frying, or do not wait until fumes rise before putting food into the pot; use steaming, boiling, braising, or stir-frying with water and cover, or adopt a Mediterranean diet with mainly cold dishes.
4. Reduce work pollution, such as wearing a mask in an environment with high pollution sources.
5. Establish good exercise habits and promoteHeart and lung function.
6. Develop good eating habits, eat less oil, more vegetables, fruits and high-fiber foods.

How harmful is secondhand smoke?
Under the curling smoke and puffs of smoke, you may know that a cigarette can release about 4000 chemical mixtures, including nicotine, irritants, carbon monoxide and at least 43 carcinogens.
Smoking is not only harmful to health, but more unfortunately, it is even more harmful to the health of others. The same volume of first-hand smoke and second-hand smoke, second-hand smoke is more toxic than first-hand smoke.
This is because of the power of mouth inhalation. When a cigarette is lit, the less mainstream smoke in the middle contains more oxygen and burns more completely. The more sidestream smoke in the surrounding area burns incompletely. When a smoker is next to a drug addict, he or she inhales not only the sidestream smoke, but also the smoke that the smoker inhales and then exhales.
How harmful is secondhand smoke? Some data have shown:
■One quarter of non-smoking lung cancer patients suffer from lung cancer caused by secondhand smoke.
■ Children who frequently inhale secondhand smoke have a 1.6-fold increased risk of developing respiratory diseases in infancy and 1.3-fold increased risk in preschool; their risk of developing asthma is 1.2 to 3.8 times greater.
■A Japanese study found that women whose husbands smoked were twice as likely to die from lung cancer as women whose husbands did not smoke.