Hillary Clinton’s Health: What Could Be Causing Her Coughing Fits?

Hillary Clinton’s health and well-being seems to be, at least to some, deteriorating rapidly, all while the world has a front row seat to the show, wondering if or when the former First Lady will crash and burn before she gets a chance to be the first female United States president.

The democratic presidential nominee suffered yet another coughing fit during a speech in Fort Pierce, Florida on Friday, sparking further speculation as to what cold be prompting these spells.

Other times in recent history Clinton has been forced to publicly display a cringeworthy hacking fit include an instance in February while giving a primary season speech in New York, again in New York in the middle of a radio interview in April, during a United Farmworkers event in California on May 5, and perhaps the worst of them all, the one in Cleveland, Ohio during a Labor Day speech.

Given all of these separate occurrences, it’s pretty clear these coughing fits indicate a chronic problem regarding Hillary Clinton’s health. But what, exactly, that problem is remains a mystery.

If you were to believe the Clinton campaign, which many Americans have a hard time doing, you’d think these hacking spells are nothing more than seasonal allergies, but does that even make any medical sense?

The Washington Free Beacon reported that the day following her coughing attack in Cleveland, Hillary told reporters, “I just upped my antihistamines and tried to break through. As I said, it happens like twice a year. It happens in the spring when the pollen comes. It happens in the fall when the pollen comes.”

Is pollen really the key to unlocking the mystery of this aspect of Hillary Clinton’s health? Cleveland.com reported that during the month of September, pollen levels reached their highest on September 6, just one day after her violent hacking spell.

However, when looking at pollen levels in New York in February by way of weather.com, no data was recorded, indicating that at this time pollen was either nonexistent or levels were so low it wasn’t worth reporting. Hence it seems highly unlikely that pollen was the cause of her coughing fit during this specific time and place.

On April 18, the day Clinton participated in a radio interview in New York, the pollen level was at a 2, which is at the low end of the scale.

Pollen levels were at 121, which is considered to be high, on May 5 in Los Angeles, California. At this time, Hillary Clinton’s health had yet to be put under a microscope, despite this being the third debilitating coughing episode of 2016.

Two out of the four times Mrs. Clinton had “allergies,” the pollen count for the area was extremely low, bordering on nonexistent. During the remaining two occurrences, the levels were considered high.

This begs an obvious question. Is coughing a symptom of pollen allergies?

According to WebMD, the symptoms associated with pollen allergies are sneezing, itchy eyes, watery eyes, red eyes, running nose, stuffy nose, wheezing and coughing.

So coughing could be the culprit of the presidential candidate’s coughing attacks, but what about the occasions in which she had one, but pollen wasn’t in high enough amounts to trigger her to cough? What are other possible health conditions with the potential to cause these fits? Most essential of all, is there a condition in relation to this that could be the puzzle piece that fits with all the other issues of Hillary Clinton’s health we’ve seen so far?

https://youtu.be/dP2CNxuVA94

According to the Mayo Clinic, a chronic cough is one that, for adults, is present for longer than a period of eight weeks.

“An occasional cough is normal — it helps clear irritants and secretions from your lungs and prevents infection. However, a cough that persists for weeks is usually the result of a medical problem. In many cases, more than one cause is involved.”

Other causes most associated with long-term coughing include asthma, gastroesophageal reflux disease (otherwise known as GERD), use of cigarettes and other tobacco products, chronic bronchitis, blood pressure medications, acid reflux, post-nasal drip and infections.

“A cough can linger long after other symptoms of pneumonia, flu, a cold or other infection of the upper respiratory tract have gone away. A common but under-recognized cause of a chronic cough in adults is pertussis, also known as whooping cough.”

We know that Hillary’s people told sources that she was diagnosed with pneumonia on September 9, and they say it was the presence of this illness that caused her to collapse on a curb outside the 9/11 Commemoration Ceremony she’d been attending on the 15 year anniversary of the terror attack.

https://youtu.be/FVDyciOQCak

If pneumonia can explain Clinton’s coughing fits, did she also have the same sickness in February, April and May? It’s possible of course, but it was never reported and there’s no proof that in these instances she had been sick with pneumonia.

Other, less common conditions associated with a chronic cough involve varying lung complications such as lung cancer and sarcoidosis. While it’s possible for Clinton to have any of these illnesses, several of them only occur in infants and children, she doesn’t display major signs of them and there just isn’t enough available information about Clinton’s medical history and current health status to make a detailed speculation.

Researching Hillary Clinton’s health, and in particular researching the potential cause of the presidential nominee’s coughing fits brings with it more questions than it does answers. What do you think is behind these hacking spells? Share your thoughts in the comments below.

[Featured Image by Matt Rourke/AP Images]