Sensory Neuropathic Cough (SNC)

Sensory Neuropathic Cough (SNC) is a chronic cough disorder that is thought to have a neurogenic cause.

Sensory neuropathic cough (SNC) ¹ is also sometimes referred to as a cough caused by “laryngeal sensory neuropathy,” or is sometimes grouped within the more general category of “refractory chronic cough.”

Symptoms of Sensory Neuropathic Cough

A person with SNC may cough dozens to hundreds of times per day, often also waking up at night to cough. A few of these daily coughing attacks may become violent and last 30 seconds to several minutes. The person’s eyes may tear up and the nose may run; the person may gag or throw up; the person may leak urine, or worse; a few of our patients have even broken one or more ribs during a violent coughing attack. A key characteristic of SNC is that a coughing attack is typically, though not always, preceded by an abrupt sensation in the throat; this sensation may be described as a “tickle,” a “sudden dry patch,” “like inhaling a powdered doughnut,” “dripping mucus,” or something else.

Possible Explanation for SNC

SNC is thought to be a relative to neuralgia, like post-herpetic neuralgia (persistent pain long after an outbreak of shingles has resolved), or even diabetic neuropathy (“I feel bees stinging my feet”), except that the sensations felt by SNC patients are not painful. With SNC, it may be that the nerve endings in a person’s throat have become damaged, so that they “misfire” and cause this cough-provoking tickling or similar sensations.

Treatment for SNC

Many individuals with SNC have found relief through use of a neuralgia medication, such as amitriptyline ², desipramine ³, gabapentin ⁴, pregabalin, oxcarbazepine, and others. These kinds of medications may help to reduce or abolish a person’s coughing by diminishing the nerve-ending “misfires” caused by SNC. In our experience, patients sometimes need to work through more than one of these neuralgia medication options, at varying dosage levels, before they arrive at a satisfactory degree of relief. Another treatment option that can be tried is capsaicin. For more about treatment, see our second video (SNC: Medications) below.