Medical Mystery

I cough in my sleep. sometime enough to wake myself up. This is very annoying.

My former husband used to tell me I was coughing in my sleep. Actually what he mentioned was my annoying habit of sleep-coughing directly into his face. Probably not my most endearing trait.

This coughing thing has been getting much more annoying as I now force feed myself throat lozenges and cough drops throughout the night and wake up with a thick scum coating my entire mouth. Probably a good thing I'm not greating another human with a wake up kiss at this point.

So awhile back I figured maybe the sub-zero temperature I like to have in the bedroom prior to sleeping was contributing to the coughing. So I *increased* the air conditioner's temp set. This worked for a few nights. I tried increasing again without too much luck.

So in my sleep induced haze, hacking my head off, I figured I'd turn over. It worked! I quit coughing!

So now I'm trying to turn over onto my right side when I feel that annoying tickle. Problem is I like sleeping on my left side. So now instead of waking up because I'm coughing, I wake up because I'm uncomfortable.

So here's the big question -*Why* does turing over squelch the coughing mechanism?

I eagerly await your well-thought-out and scientifically based opinions.