@ginak Thank you for sharing the information about coughing. I'm allergic to many things, both indoor and outdoor kinds. My throat is constantly in a irritated state. I can go for hours without coughing even once. Then the throat gets itchy and I immediately feel the need to cough. I have tried to suppress it by sipping water. Sometimes it works and sometimes not. When I cannot control it with water, holding the cough would only lead to eventual violent eruption of longer and stronger coughs. At times, I do suspect that my allergies are only part of the reason that I cough. The other part is kind of mental, because sometimes when I realize that I haven't coughed for a while, my throat will immediately feel itchy. Also I don't cough in my sleep although my throat must have felt the same as when I'm awake. So it is definitely a combination of physical and mental aspects that induce the cough.