For cold and coughing symptoms, I've been taking medications like 4 to 8 mg
of Chlorpheniramine Maleate (Chlor-Trimeton), and it works extremely well.
I've also tried Diphenhydramine (Benadryl) and it works almost equally as
well.  I find I can take it only at night and the drugs last long enough to
make it through the day without much trouble.  Usually after a week of the
(nightly) medication my cold symptoms disappear and I'm back to normal and I
have no further need for it.  Without the medication I could have a lasting
cough for months.

However, these drugs have side effects such as drowsyness and occasional
headache, but lately the headaches are becoming more common for me, so I'm
curious if some other medications with less side effects could help me..

BTW, I've asked a few different doctors about this and they've been of
little help in offering suggestions or knowledge so I thought I'd post here
to see if anyone else may have a more experienced answer..

So when it comes to drugs like Claritin, or other drugs in this related
family, will they help?  I have tried Claritin, and it doesn't seem to cause
much of a noticable difference, but I have no allergies, so perhaps this is
why?   However, the above two drugs are allergy medications and yet they do
wonders for me.

I've been told by a doctor that none of these drugs should help at all,
since I have no allergies.  Then I've been told by others that it might be
only the drugs in the same family as Diphenhydramine would help, but they
didn't really know for sure.  One pharmascist told me that drugs like
Claritin or other newer antihistamines should provide at least some help,
but he didn't know for sure.  I find it surprising for all the cold-like
symptoms being extremely common in the world, that there would be a wealth
of concrete information about this.

So in essence, is there any kind of low-side-effect allergy medications that
are known to work well to relieve runny-nose and coughing symptoms, even
though there are no allergies?

Thanks, Ian

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http://www.upright.net/ian/