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Cough: three days, three weeks, three months
Cough: three days, three weeks, three months: one hub organised by duration plus ~14 pages, because duration is what decides everything: acute viral cough…
This guide is general education, not a diagnosis or an individual treatment plan. Urgent, severe or worsening symptoms belong with the local emergency service or a qualified clinician.
What this guide covers
One hub organised by duration plus ~14 pages, because duration is what decides everything: acute viral cough and what shortens it (little), the post-infectious cough that lasts eight weeks and terrifies people, cough-variant asthma, upper-airway cough syndrome, reflux cough, the ACE-inhibitor cough that gets investigated for months before someone reads the medicine list, whooping cough in vaccinated adults, chronic cough in a smoker and the referral threshold, cough in babies and the age limits on cough medicines and honey, croup's barking cough at night, and the red flags — coughing blood, weight loss, breathlessness.
One focused section asks: "A cough that has lasted three weeks: what is normal and what is not".
How to use it
Start with the description that most closely matches your question about Cough: three days, three weeks, three months. Use the evidence section to understand what is known, then use the boundary section to decide when self-education should stop and clinical care should begin.
The page keeps the main question, its evidence base and its limits together in one canonical place. That makes it useful as a quick orientation and avoids splitting a broad subject into shallow pages before each narrower answer has enough verified material of its own.
Search vocabulary in four languages
Terminology changes across borders. These are example phrases people use for the same subject in Estonian, Finnish, Russian and English; they are included as a practical vocabulary aid, not as hidden keywords.
| Language | Example phrase |
|---|---|
| Estonian | kuiv köha ei lähe ära |
| Estonian | köha kestab kolm nädalat |
| Finnish | pitkittynyt yskä syyt |
| Russian | сухой кашель не проходит месяц |
| English | cough lasting 3 weeks when to worry |
Evidence and provenance
The evidence map below records the primary, official or openly licensed material chosen for this guide. It is deliberately visible so a reader can tell the difference between a rule published by an authority, a measured dataset and an editorial explanation.
Source: ERS guidelines on chronic cough in adults and children (ERJ, published), Cochrane honey for acute cough in children (cited), NICE CKS cough and NG12 referral thresholds (official). · checked 2026-09-09
Source names are preserved even where an authority changes its web address. No figure is added to this launch page unless it is already present in the cited source description or can be computed from a named dataset.
Scope and boundaries
/colds is self-care for a cold that is running its course; this is the cough that outlives it.
Connected TempoLife guides
The following paths are the intentional hand-offs named in the brief. They keep adjacent subjects separate while making the next useful reference easy to find.
Colds
Continue to the related TempoLife reference.
Asthma
Continue to the related TempoLife reference.
Lungs
Continue to the related TempoLife reference.
Why it belongs on TempoLife
/colds, /asthma, /lungs, /quit, /epi.
Frequently asked questions
What does this guide cover?
One hub organised by duration plus ~14 pages, because duration is what decides everything: acute viral cough and what shortens it (little), the post-infectious cough that lasts eight weeks and terrifies people, cough-variant asthma, upper-airway cough syndrome, reflux cough, the ACE-inhibitor cough that gets investigated for months before someone reads the medicine list, whooping cough in vaccinated adults, chronic cough in a smoker and the referral threshold, cough in babies and the age limits on cough medicines…
What evidence does it use?
ERS guidelines on chronic cough in adults and children (ERJ, published), Cochrane honey for acute cough in children (cited), NICE CKS cough and NG12 referral thresholds (official).
Where does this guide stop?
/colds is self-care for a cold that is running its course; this is the cough that outlives it.
Turn the reference into a routine
TempoLife brings food, movement, sleep and everyday health habits into one private place when you want to track what happens next.