No, I don't have swine flu, thank you very much

It's 2:30AM on a work night and I'm downstairs at the computer.

A couple of weeks ago I had my annual physical and my doctor decided it was time to start protecting my kidneys from my diabetes. (Which is under good control, thank you very much.) He put me on a daily dose of Cozaar, a blood pressure medication which also helps kidney function, and said several times that a common side effect is coughing.

I've never heard of coughing as a side effect before (cue foreboding music) so I was somewhat amused. My amusement turned out to be ironic when, after six days of taking the drug, bam. I woke up last Monday morning with a cough. Actually, it was more of a mild upper respiratory infection accompanied by a cough.

I stayed home that first Monday and felt good enough to go to work the next day. I stopped coughing up phlegm but the cough persisted. I was hoping it would pass so I could continue to take the medicine but instead the cough continued to worsen. Last Wednesday I stopped taking the Cozaar.

If only that had helped.

We went to a party on Friday and I hacked my way through 10 hours of fun. Over the weekend I started coughing whenever I lay down. On the packed train the other day I couldn't get a seat and stood over people coughing into my hand until some guy gave me a cough drop.

It's now been almost a week since my last dose and I'm still coughing through the night. The last few nights I've slept sitting up to minimize the coughing. I came down here tonight to spare Carol of my constant loud cough. (Hilariously, earlier tonight in her half-awake state after a loud fit of my coughing, she drowsily told me to "stop smashing things".) The cough is slowly getting better, I'm coughing less and less each day, but geez!

I now have a new medicine, Avapro, to replace the Cozaar but I'm not taking it until the cough is gone. And if it too causes coughing, it's going at the first sign.

So, I can report that, yes, coughing is a very real side effect of some medications. And while it sounds somewhat funny, it really, really, sucks.