I started taking Lisinopril 5/31/2006. I started coughing in Jun...

I started taking Lisinopril 5/31/2006. I started coughing in June. At first I did not think anything of it, since every summer at the height of allergy season, I always have a coughing spell for 4-6 weeks. But this time, it did not go away and seemed a lot worse. I did take a cough medicine (codiclear DH syrup). This is the only cough syrup that I have found that has ever helped any cough I have ever had. It did help slightly, but usually only to help me get over my coughing a little easier. When I coughed, I had what you would call coughing spells. When I coughed, it would only last for about 2-3 minutes. I would cough until I could get a little bit of phlem up and then only after that, would it start to subside. I would have these spells about every hour or so. I coughed to the point of throwing up and like others, it got worse at night where I would wake up every 1 - 1 1/2 hours coughing, sometime waking up in the middle of the night and not being able to go back to sleep at all. The one thing that seemed to help a little was water. I always had to keep water with me 24/7. I would drink about 16 oz. every hour. It sound like a lot, but it was necessary just to survive the coughing. This continued for about 4 months when my doctor thought I had Reflux and prescribed a reflux medication. This really did not help at all. She then prescribed another reflux med and said if this did not help, I would have to have a micro-oscopy (sp?), where they put a microscope down your throat. I still at this point thought it was still allergies, so I went to my allergy specialist that said it was not allergies and he thought it was a sinus infection even though I had no symptoms. He prescribed an expensive antibiotic, which did not help, then ordered a CAT scan which showed my sinuses crystal clear. After 6 months of coughing, throwing up and not sleeping, I decided to go online to see if one of my meds was keeping me up at night. To my surprise I came across information that Lisinopril causes persistant dry cough. I immediately went off after consulting my pharmacist, since it was a holiday weekend and on Tuesday called my dr. to let her know what I found out. She prescribed another bp med. It has been 2 weeks since I have been off Lisinopril and I am just now starting to see an improvement. My coughing is about 50% better. About 2 weeks ago I also asked my doctor to prescribe a coughing pill that I had been prescribed before. It is Tessalon, or the generic Bensonatate. For the first time in 6 1/2 months, I finally slept most of the night without coughing and only woke up once or twice to go to the bathroom. I also took my cough syrup to at night. I just saw my doctor today and she also precribed a steroid inhaler to help calm things down. Even though the lisinopril is out of your system after 48 hours, depending on how long you have been coughing, it may take a while for things to calm down because everything is irritated from coughing for so long. I hope this has helped, because I know how hard it is to find information that might help when things seem hopeless. Feel free to e-mail me if you have any questions or need some advice or support.