Q. I have dry and itchy cough. Can this be due to silicosis?

Hello doctor,

I have no familial history of asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). I am a 38-year-old male, 30 BMI with prehypertension which I am trying to manage first with diet and exercise. Parents both have hypertension. Two years ago, I became a new home-owner and decided to do some home repairs on my own. I was sanding drywall most times without a mask, and had put some floor patch and leveler and had hammered certain spots and smoothed it out with a sander, most times without a mask. A month ago, I developed a cough and my fiancé caught it from me as well, but she is fine now. It had some mucous, no fever, I was still able to attend school without difficulty. However, now I have a dry cough, intermittent. Where at times I feel itchy and cough. No sputum, and now my airway feels a bit dry especially my oropharynx and it has been over a month and I still have an intermittent cough that is not going away. No bloody sputum or anything. And when I am sleeping at night, I do not really have coughs especially since I can sleep throughout the night without waking up from coughs.I feel it more when I drive in a car and have air conditioner towards my face and cold air. I went to the urgent care center yesterday and they prescribed antibiotics Clarithromycin, and Methylprednisone 4 mg week-long schedule and one place did a chest X-ray. He said the lower bases showed some congestion, maybe mucous plug.I am worried about silicosis. How do I rule this out? Today I feel like I am in a swimming pool a bit. Yesterday, other then the intermittent cough I had no issue with breathing. I smoke marijuana occasionally and have stopped since I realized it was really irritating my throat. Please help me.

Thank you doctor,

I will go today to get the chest X-ray and take Azithromycin 500 mg tablet just once. That is it? If I was exposed to a large dose of silica from the two days of working and grinding at home. How soon would it develop symptoms? Because I never developed fevers or difficult after that two years ago. It was a month ago from a cough that had sputum and my fiancé got it as well but now it is still here, that got me worried. If it was acute, would I have suffered from a cough from the initial contact or sooner?