How To Treat An Itchy Throat
Symptoms, Causes, and Treatment
Written by Dr. Tasneem Bhatia - Genexa Medical Advisory Board and Partner on May 18, 2021
We’ve all experienced an itchy throat at one time or another. It starts with a slight tickle, then builds up to an annoying itch that you just can’t clear no matter how hard you try or how often you cough. An itchy throat can disrupt your entire day. Even worse, if your children get itchy throats, they won’t be able to focus or sleep when you need them to.
It’s important to know how to treat an itchy throat for both yourself and your children. As a board-certified integrative medicine physician and wellness expert, advisor and partner to clean-medicine company (same active ingredients you need, but without artificial fillers), I wanted to create a guide to help explain how you can treat an itchy throat using multiple methods that can tackle different causes.
Causes of Itchy Throats
Kids and adults can get itchy throats from all kinds of causes. In general, an itchy throat means that your esophageal tissue is irritated or inflamed, whether it’s because of bacteria, environmental contaminants, or regular mucus.
When you get an itchy throat, you’ll also usually have to deal with coughing. But unlike with wet coughs that happen to force mucus away from your lungs, itchy throats don’t always go away after a few minutes.
Let’s break down the common causes of itchy throats in more detail.
Infections
Both bacterial and viral infections can cause itchy throats before they progress to more severe symptoms, like a sore throat. Examples of these issues include strep throat or tonsillitis. Even regular viruses, like those of the common cold or the flu, can cause an itchy throat by irritating your esophagus or causing your body to produce extra mucus.
Dehydration
People also often get itchy throats due to dehydration. Dehydration is more common in hot weather, when people are more likely to sweat, or in dry climates, such as the desert. But many people are taken by surprise by dehydration during the winter months. In winter, ambient humidity is usually low, so you lose more body moisture to passive evaporation.
Regardless, dehydration can cause your throat to not produce enough saliva, causing itchiness and other irritation.
Allergic Reactions
You or your kids might also experience allergic reactions, which can cause mild to severe throat irritation and itchiness. If your child experiences an itchy throat after eating or drinking some kind of new food or beverage, listen to their symptoms. An itchy throat could be an initial symptom and act as a precursor to more severe symptoms.
Other General Irritants
Beyond more specific causes, general irritants in the environment can cause itchy throats in just about anyone. These common irritants can either coat the back of your throat, leading to itchiness, or trigger a mild immune system response. Technically, many of these irritants are allergens, but they’re not severe enough to need allergy medication in most cases.
Examples include:
- Animal dander and fur, especially if the dander in question is from an animal you aren’t used to being around
- Dust, especially if your home is older or hasn’t been thoroughly cleaned in a while
- Mold, which can grow inside your home in dark, wet areas like the bathroom
- Pollen, which is commonly found in trees and grass -- pollen irritation is most common in the spring and summer, when most plants are reproducing
If your child experiences an itchy throat regularly, try to figure out where they have been playing to narrow down the causes of their itchy throat symptoms. Alternatively, if coughing only happens at home, the source of the problem might be in your house.
Discovering more details can help you pick out the best treatment for their itchy throats.
Itchy Throat Treatments
Luckily, there are many itchy throat treatments you can try. You also don’t have to stick to just one. You can try multiple strategies together to alleviate itchy throat symptoms as quickly as possible.
Clean Medicine
We’d strongly recommend picking up a homeopathic allergy medicine like Genexa’s Kids’ Allergy Care if your child has a mild itchy throat due to allergens -- it’s made with clean ingredients like Strychnine tree extract to help ease that itchy throat without synthetic ingredients.
Additionally, Genexa’s Kids’ Allergy Medicine is a clean formula that uses diphenhydramine to serve as a powerful antihistamine, just like Benadryl®, but without additional synthetic flavorings or artificial inactive ingredients that don’t benefit your child’s health.
Warm Water Gargle
If you’re looking for a more direct itchy throat reliever, you can make one at home with a few simple ingredients. We’d recommend making a warm saltwater gargle that can help to soothe the throat and clear away debris or mucus.
Combine warm water with a little salt and baking soda, then mix them all well. Gargle the resulting mixture and be sure not to swallow. If you plan to give this to your child, give them just a little bit and make sure they understand they need to spit it out after gargling for 10 seconds or so.
Caffeine-Free Tea
You might also try giving them caffeine-free tea. Hot beverages are a great idea in general since they can relieve irritation and soothe your throat. But certain caffeine-free teas are particularly soothing and can help to displace mucus that may have built up over time, causing an itchy throat that just won’t quit.
We recommend caffeine-free tea since you’ll be able to drink the beverage right up until bedtime. It’s especially important to avoid caffeinated beverages if you want to treat an itchy throat for your child since you don’t want them to be bouncing around past their bedtime!
Add some honey to the tea for more flavor and an even more soothing experience. If your child isn’t a fan of tea, warm water by itself is another good alternative.
Honey
In addition to combining your hot tea of choice with honey, you can also take 2 teaspoons of raw honey by itself. Honey is used in many throat soothing medications for a reason – it can stop you from coughing and soothe an inflamed throat by gently coating it.
Just be sure not to rely on this method too often since eating too much honey is bad for your diet, even if it’s a natural sweetener. If you want to use honey for your children, give them 1 teaspoon of raw honey, and make sure it’s real honey and not just high fructose corn syrup in a bear-shaped bottle.
Summary
There’s no denying that itchy throats can be tough to deal with. But, there are plenty of ways you can soothe itchy throats for both you and your child. You’re best off combining multiple methods to relieve throat irritation and clear away mucus at the same time.
Be sure to try out Genexa’s clean allergy medicine if you want to get powerful relief for your child without many of the artificial additives you’ll find with typical OTC options.
On top of soothing itchy throats, Genexa is working to reinvent the medicine industry by creating real medicine with clean ingredients, bringing homeopathy and proven pharmaceutical ingredients together to put people first. It’s medicine with the same effective active ingredients that works, but without the artificial inactive ingredients you don’t need.