I've had it for about a week, but last night I was coughing loudly about every 30 seconds - for about an hour and a half before getting out of bed and seeing if Telewest had fixed my email. Which they hadn't (and in fact it's still not working properly now).
Quick swish with some mouthwash to numb the area, will and resolve gathered and I was back to bed, and even managed to sleep through until my alarm at 6am to get on the train down to London.
I'm feeling a bit better now - I had at least 30 minutes snooze on the train, and descended on Boots at Euston for medicine. "Drowsy or Non-Drowsy" she said... "Just make the hurting stop!" I pleaded. According to the label this stuff is for "unproductive coughs" - perhaps if I'd got a productive one it could have come to work for me and I could have slept in after it had gone.
I've also had a week of razors. I left mine at my parents at the weekend. So on Monday I bought another one. Only I left that in the office. So today I had to buy some more. I'll hopefully never be short again. Electrolysis seems more tempting by the day.