Many patients after thoracic surgery will have different degrees of cough, mainly manifested as irritating dry cough, no sputum or a small amount of white foamy sputum, which will be aggravated by deep inhalation or smoke inhalation, and it is heavier at night than during the day. Due to the lack of clarity about the cause of the cough, many patients think that it is a postoperative infection and take a lot of antibiotics, which is not only ineffective, but also aggravates the patient’s anxiety. What is going on here? In fact, this type of cough is not due to infection, but due to the aseptic inflammation caused by surgery. Thoracic surgery often affects the trachea and bronchi (e.g., freeing of the trachea and bronchi, removal of lymph nodes around the trachea and bronchi). Injuries due to such operations produce a large number of inflammatory mediators during recovery. Almost every postoperative patient will have this problem, but not every patient will have similar symptoms, due to the fact that each patient has a different airway sensitivity. For patients with high airway responsiveness, this inflammatory mediator leads to the irritating cough described earlier. For patients with high airway sensitivity, this cough may last for months. Understanding the reasons for the appearance of this cough, we can know the correct treatment: 1, first of all, do not be nervous, to understand that this is a normal reaction to the postoperative period, do not need to rush to the doctor; 2, antibiotics are not effective, so do not casually take antibiotics for a long time. It is important to know that long-term use of antibiotics is only bad for the body, not good; 3, the main method of treatment is to reduce airway sensitivity and cough suppression, with anti-allergic drugs and central cough suppressants as the mainstay, the goal of the treatment is to suppress coughing at night, to avoid coughing to affect the patient’s rest.