Sometimes you might feel discomfort in the throat due to heavy mucus or something stagnant at the back of your throat. You are forced to hack cough or clear the throat from possible obstruction. 

A person presents as if he suffers from cough yet in real sense its post-nasal drip syndrome.

The post-nasal drip, especially in the elderly, prompts them to spill saliva around as they try to clear their upper respiratory airways to enable proper breathing pattern.

A few years ago, I took some time to chat with a 70-year-old man who had a tendency to spread out saliva or mucus-containing saliva around his surroundings. 

I asked him what kind of sensation he felt before he spit out saliva and replied that he was always burdened by increased mucus accumulation at the back of his throat that make him feel uncomfortable. 

He did not report any episodes of nausea and vomiting sensation. I explained to him the physiological importance of mucus and saliva secretions in our body.

I high lightened the causes and challenges of possible increased mucus production in his mouth or throat. I told him that swallowing saliva in absence of nausea is much better than to spread out as the latter creates poor hygiene environment a possible source for contamination and infection.

This man obviously had a problem of post-nasal drainage. Post-nasal drip syndrome is excessive accumulation of mucus at the back of your throat.

Most people with post-nasal drip discomfort will always have excessive leakage of mucus through nasal septum. Naturally, the nasal septum creates communication between nasal cavity and oral cavity.

The existence of the nasal septum offers normal body function. First of all, the flow and passage of mucus helps to clean nasal passages, remove some bacteria, viruses as well as other foreign materials that can cause infection.

Mucus also helps humidify the air that circulates in our body and this keeps us comfortable. 

But God was clever during creation. He knew that the septum was there to serve a useful purpose and at the same time gave man a natural solution to counteract possible challenges. 

One of the common home remedy for this is the sleeping position. This is why you prop up your head when you sleep, otherwise lying at the back would just favour mucus to accumulate at the back of your throat. 

This sleep position does not expose the opening of the septum to excessive leakage of mucus from the nasal sinuses to the back of the throat. 

People who sleep in supine position or lie flat on their back are usually vulnerable to excessive mucus accumulation at the back of the throat.

For people who like to sleep on the abdomen, it is advisable to put a pillow underneath your abdomen as this prevents flat position of the body that promotes mouth breathing with possible nasal inflammation. 

Inflamed nasal airway would automatically divert all the mucus from sinuses into the back of your throat.

There are factors that can aggravate or cause excessive leakage of mucus from the nasal sinuses to the throat especially due to over-production.

Some of the commonest causes of the post-nasal drip syndrome include allergies, flu or colds as well as other upper respiratory infections as seen in people with chronic sinusitis. 

These factors will elicit increased mucus flow from the nose into the back of the throat and makes people to hack cough all the time.

The immediate solution in such circumstances is to treat the underlying cause of the problem.

 Anti-histamines or anti-allergic drugs are usually prescribed to people with post-nasal drip syndrome since these medications tend to dry up the mucus in air passages.

Dr Joseph Kamugisha is a resident oncologist  in Jerusalem, Israel