Holy fuck this is driving me nuts. Over the last few years I've gotten more and more colds. Like 5-6 a year. I am a light smoker (7-8 a day...) and I travel on airplanes quite a bit. I used to get like 1 cold like every 2 years. What's worst is the lingering tickle cough, that awful scratchy tickle feeling in my throat...right in my Adam's apple. It sometimes last for like 2 weeks. I believe it's the residual of the cold and I think it's post nasal drip. Had a massage today and when I was lying face up I was coughing every 2 minutes. When face down I didn't cough once. Anyone have a remedy that doesn't involve me lying face down all day?
I had smoked for twenty over years - one pack a day. During that time, I had all kinds of throat problems - sore throats that would get really severe from time to time, coughs from nowhere and other things that I suspected were due to the smoking. One day I decided that it was a good time to quit and stopped smoking after going cold turkey for two days. There was some slight discomfort over those two days but after 48 hours, I knew I could stop smoking without any problems. It's been three years since the last cigarette and all those various problems that I had with the throat just disappeared; they never came back. And the funny part is that I never craved for another cigarette after those two days of going cold turkey. Soon after I had quit, I was apprehensive about second hand smoke triggering the habit. Guess what, sometimes by accident I can stand near someone smoking and inhale that second hand smoke and still don't have that urge to smoke again.
I don't want to scare you but my friend started out with something similar (in addition to a having a light raspiness to his relaxed breathing) and he just dealt with it until it bothered him so much that he had to go to the doctor. It ended up being throat cancer, and he passed away last year. He was 49. I'm only sharing that with you because if it's happening more frequently and lasting for longer each successive time it does happen, then you need to either stop smoking for a month and see if it clears up, or go get it checked out, or both.
In regards to the frequent colds nowadays, the fact of the matter is that your immune system is becoming very weak. If your diet hasn't been the greatest lately, then you will need to get that back in order, but the first thing you should do is get on a good multivitamin because your immune system depends heavily on essential vitamins and minerals in order to function properly. And I'm not talking about one of those cheap one-a-day vitamins from the grocery store. I take a multivitamin powder that comes in daily packets. You just rip the packet open and dump it in a shaker cup with about a cup of water and then chug it. It's got a citrus-like flavor to it, so it won't be like chugging something nasty or anything like that.