Croup Like Cough With Seasonal Allergies

Seasonal allergies affect your entire upper respiratory system. When you feel your allergies take over, clogging your nose and causing post-nasal drip, you may begin coughing to relieve the tickle in your throat. If your coughing becomes bad enough, it can sound like croup. Several methods of dealing with your cough are available to you.

Allergies and Asthma with Croupy Cough

As your body overreacts to allergens in your environment, you develop cold-like symptoms, including runny or congested nose, post-nasal drip, sore throat and a deep, barking cough -- a cough that sounds like croup. While the coughing is irritating and potentially painful, it serves a purpose as your body tries to get rid of a perceived dangerous invader.

If you also suffer from allergic asthma, which is a chronic lung condition, you are also prone to coughing as your airways tighten up in response to pet dander, dust and pollen in the environment around you.

About Coughing

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Because your body uses the cough mechanism to get rid of different offenders, a run-of-the mill cough that allows you to get rid of phlegm in your throat is normal, as is one that allows you to cough at dust in the air. Your body treats allergens as it does dust that gets into your nose or throat -- it sets up the cough response. If your allergies become severe enough, your throat gets irritated, leading to a cough that becomes increasingly dry and croupy.

Treating Croupy Coughing

Place a cool-mist humidifier in your room at night to make the air more humid. Drink more cool, clear fluids to help loosen the secretions in your lungs and airways so you can get rid of them. Squirt saline drops into your nostrils so you can get rid of nasal congestion. If you are woken up at night with the seal-like croupy cough, go into the bathroom and turn the hot water on in your shower for several minutes. Close the bathroom door and stay in the bathroom, breathing the steam into your lungs for at least 20 minutes.

For a child with allergies and a croupy cough, take him into the bathroom, turn the hot water on in the shower and wet a clean washcloth and hold it near his face so he can breathe the humid air in, suggests U.S. News Health 2.

Cough Treatment Precautions

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If your young child suffers from allergies and has developed a croup-like cough, do not give her over-the-counter medications such as cough syrups. While you want to ease the coughing and make her feel better, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration released an advisory stating that children under 2 years of age should not receive these types of medication unless your doctor prescribes them.

For children older than 2, but younger than 6, the FDA recommended that OTC cough medications not be given to them. The FDA’s reasoning is that the medications don’t work effectively in children of this age group and the medications have not been proven safe.