Once You Have Pneumonia Is It Easier to Get Again
When presidential candidate Hillary Clinton fell casualty to pneumonia recently, questions about the seriousness and implications of her disease permeated the media. We also wondered if we knew every bit much about the illness every bit we idea we did.
Nosotros sought answers from Katharine DeGeorge, MD, MS, a UVA family medicine md voted "Best General Practitioner" in C-Ville Weekly's Best of C-Ville 2015 and 2016, who gave us some insight.
What were your showtime thoughts when y'all heard Clinton had pneumonia? "Oh love" or "no big deal"? Or "of course, she'south probably exhausted"?
No large deal.
Why?
Because pneumonia is fairly common, and the vast majority of otherwise healthy patients volition recover and be able to go about their business within a few weeks.
What exactly is pneumonia?
Regardless of whether it's a viral or bacterial organism causing the infection, pneumonia occurs when the infectious organisms group together in the lungs along with allowed cells that are trying to fight the infection and interfere with normal lung function and tin block the flow of oxygen.
Sometimes people become the flu and pneumonia confused – Bill Clinton called his wife's condition the flu, for instance. What'south the difference, and which is worse?
It'south easy to get them confused. Both are common respiratory illnesses that:
- May cause fever, cough and excessive fatigue
- Have the potential to cause serious illness or even death, though most people fully recover
A unproblematic chest X-ray can help us brand the correct diagnosis if we aren't certain after a good history and physical exam. Making the right diagnosis is important because information technology often affects our handling plans.
Flu vs. Pneumonia
The flu:
- Caused by a virus – then antibiotics won't help
- Infects olfactory organ, throat and lungs
- Symptoms vary but tin can include fever, chills, coughing, headache, muscle and joint pain, sore throat, nasal congestion, full general fatigue, and even diarrhea or airsickness (mainly in kids) and last about 3-seven days
- No shortness of breath in uncomplicated cases
- More contagious than pneumonia
- People commonly become better on their own with rest, fluids and over the counter medications
- Tin can develop into pneumonia in more than serious cases
Pneumonia:
- Most often caused by a leaner
- Affects the lower respiratory tract and lungs
- Symptoms that distinguish it from the flu include difficulty or pain with animate and a persistent coughing productive of thick yellowish/dark-green sputum
- Near people need antibiotics to get better
- More likely to require hospitalization than the flu
Who Gets Pneumonia?
Are some people more than decumbent? Does getting pneumonia mean someone has a weak immune system or something?
Getting pneumonia doesn't necessarily mean that your allowed organisation is weak. Lots of perfectly healthy people get pneumonia.
Even so, the hazard of developing pneumonia is college for people with certain weather condition such as:
- Asthma
- Chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder (COPD)
- Diabetes
- Chronic respiratory disease
- Dementia
- Excessive alcohol use
- Middle disease
- Smoking
- Stroke
Pneumonia tin likewise have serious complications or even exist deadly, especially for people who:
- Are very immature (0-iv years old)
- Are age 65 and older
- Accept immune systems weakened by other serious illnesses or medications
In the United states of america, about ten percent of people over the historic period of 65 who are hospitalized for pneumonia volition die within 30 days, then this tin be very serious stuff.
Do symptoms nowadays differently in older people?
They sure can. The typical symptoms of pneumonia can be more subtle in older people, or they can present differently altogether, with the only sign of illness being weakness, confusion or collapsing.
Practice stress and exhaustion make information technology worse?
Stress and exhaustion can most definitely lead to worse symptoms or complicating conditions, virtually notably aridity, in people with pneumonia. Dehydration itself tin atomic number 82 to weakness and confusion, and can also crusade depression blood pressure, which again tin can lead to weakness, being unsteady on your feet, and plummet. It sounds trite, merely our grandmothers were correct when they told us to balance and drinkable plenty of fluids when nosotros are sick! Our bodies demand to conserve as of energy they can to fight pneumonia and get on the route to a total recovery.
Is it obvious if someone has it? Every bit in, if you were watching Clinton, or a colleague at work, would their symptoms be obvious or not?
Nearly people with pneumonia will announced at least a little sick. Yous might notice them:
- Coughing a lot
- Looking flushed or like they are sweating
- Walking more slowly or unsteadily
- Having a hard time speaking or walking without having to interruption to grab their jiff
Some people, still, have balmy cases of pneumonia that tin go unnoticed altogether or exist mistaken for a elementary cold, cough or allergies.
Types of Pneumonia
Some people find the departure between viral and bacterial pneumonias confusing. Which is more severe?
Often, but not always, viral pneumonia is less astringent than bacterial pneumonia and requires only residue, fluids and, for some, supplemental oxygen. People with bacterial pneumonia demand treatment with antibiotics without which there is a much greater gamble of a prolonged or more severe disease grade and complications.
Is there such a matter equally 'double' or 'triple' pneumonia? Why is it chosen walking pneumonia?
Walking pneumonia is a colloquialism that generally refers to a mild case of pneumonia, often caused by an "singular" bacterial organism (because information technology's not the typical agent that causes pneumonia), called Mycoplasma pneumoniae. This mild form of pneumonia tin can be so mild that people don't even know they have it, or if they exercise, the symptoms don't preclude participation in normal activities (including walking, thus the term "walking pneumonia").
Double pneumonia (sometimes chosen bronchial pneumonia) simply refers to infections in two (of the 3) lobes of the lungs, and generally indicates a more severe infection that often requires hospitalization.
Triple pneumonia is a fiddling more complicated. Basically it occurs when a person with pneumonia (often double pneumonia) is treated and clears the original infection, but and so gets a subsequent case of pneumonia affecting one or both lungs. Triple pneumonia carries a much worse prognosis than uncomplicated lobar pneumonia (affecting only ane lobe).
Handling & Prevention
How easy it is to go rid of it or stop it in its tracks?
When appropriate antibiotics for bacterial pneumonia are started right away, many people with pneumonia tin can be back to their normal land of health within a couple weeks, although some will take a lingering cough or fatigue that can last for a month or more.
Smokers or people with underlying lung weather similar asthma or chronic bronchitis may have a harder time getting back to baseline. The key to stopping pneumonia in its tracks is prompt diagnosis and treatment.
Is there a vaccine?
At that place are 2 types of pneumonia vaccines available. They protect confronting the most common and aggressive serotypes of Streptococcus pneumoniae, the organism well-nigh oftentimes responsible for bacterial pneumonia. Yet, pneumonia can be caused by other organisms, including viral, bacterial, fungal and parasitic species, so the vaccines do not prevent against all forms of pneumonia. Getting pneumonia once doesn't mean you tin can't get it once again.
We recommend these vaccines equally function of routine babyhood immunizations and for people aged 65 years and older, or those with sure medical problems that increase the take chances of pneumonia or its complications. The pneumonia vaccines are only given a few times during your life, which is different than flu shots, which you should become yearly.
Concerns to Consider
As a md, what are your master concerns when you discover a patient has pneumonia?
The first affair that goes through my caput when seeing a patient with suspected pneumonia is "ill or not sick." Infections like this can lead to a severe systemic response that you don't want to miss chosen sepsis, which requires prompt activeness. Vital signs such every bit body temperature, heart rate, respiratory charge per unit, oxygen level and blood pressure help determine but how sick the patient is and whether or not they need to be hospitalized.
Do You Have Pneumonia Symptoms?
Find a family medicine or primary care physician near you.
Some other essential piece of the puzzle is determining if the infection may have been picked up from a infirmary or other health-intendance facility like a nursing dwelling house. Pathogens that live in these places have a greater risk of being antibiotic resistant and require different treatment considerations.
For most people, especially those without other serious medical conditions, a simple class of antibiotics forth with rest and fluids volition do, and they'll be back on their feet in no time.
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Source: https://blog.uvahealth.com/2016/09/28/pneumonia-101-qa/
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