Early symptoms are similar to influenza symptoms: fever, a dry cough, headache, muscle pain, and weakness. Within a day or two, the symptoms typically get worse, with increasing cough, shortness of breath and muscle pain. There may be a high fever and there may be blueness of the lips.
1. Congestion. This is typically the first stage of infection that occurs after a pneumonia infection has dominated one of the lobes in your lung. The congestion stage typically lasts around 24 hours, and your lungs become inflamed, red, and weighed down by infection.
Stage 1: Congestion
During the congestion phase, the lungs become very heavy and congested due to infectious fluid that has accumulated in the air sacs. During this stage, your older loved one may experience early pneumonia symptoms such as: Coughing. A feeling of heaviness in the chest.
Pneumonia Symptoms
Here are the symptoms that you should look out for: Severe sweating and/or chills. High fever that could reach up to 105 degrees Fahrenheit. Congestion, chest pain, or a feeling of tightness.
Most cases of viral pneumonia are mild and get better without treatment within 1 to 3 weeks. Some cases are more serious and require a hospital stay.
Bacterial pneumonia is more serious and often results in a gurgling sound when breathing and mucus or phlegm when coughing.
Walking pneumonia usually indicates a more mild pneumonia caused by a bacteria called mycoplasma pneumoniae. If you have walking pneumonia, your symptoms will be mild and you'll probably function normally. Walking pneumonia symptoms include: Dry cough that's persistent and typically gets worse at night.
Drink warm beverages, take steamy baths and use a humidifier to help open your airways and ease your breathing. Contact your doctor right away if your breathing gets worse instead of better over time. Stay away from smoke to let your lungs heal. This includes smoking, secondhand smoke and wood smoke.
It may take time to recover from pneumonia. Some people feel better and are able to return to their normal routines in 1 to 2 weeks. For others, it can take a month or longer. Most people continue to feel tired for about a month.
Walking pneumonia is usually diagnosed through a physical examination. The doctor will check your child's breathing and listen for a hallmark crackling sound that often indicates walking pneumonia. If needed, a chest X-ray or tests of mucus samples from the throat or nose might be done to confirm the diagnosis.
As pneumonia progresses, it has four stages: Congestion, red hepatization, gray hepatization, and resolution. You'll typically feel worse during the first three stages before feeling better during the final stage when the immune cells clear the infection.
Chest pain is one of the most common symptoms of pneumonia. Chest pain is caused by the membranes in the lungs filling with fluid. This creates pain that can feel like a heaviness or stabbing sensation and usually worsens with coughing, breathing or laughing.
Pneumonia is mostly spread when people infected cough, sneeze or talk, sending respiratory droplets into the air. These droplets can then be inhaled by close contacts. Less often, you can get pneumonia from touching an object or surface that has the germ on it and then touching your nose or mouth.
Often viral cases of pneumonia begin as congestion and cough with or without fever in the first few days. When a doctor listens to the lungs and finds breathing sounds are not clear on either side of the chest, a viral cause over bacterial is even more highly suspected.
Common symptoms of pneumonia include: a cough – which may be dry, or produce thick yellow, green, brown or blood-stained mucus (phlegm) difficulty breathing – your breathing may be rapid and shallow, and you may feel breathless, even when resting. rapid heartbeat.
Sometimes pneumonia can be hard to diagnose. This is because it can cause some of the same symptoms as a cold or the flu. It may take time for you to realize that you have a more serious condition.
Lie on your side with a pillow between your legs and your head elevated with pillows. Keep your back straight. Lie on your back with your head elevated and your knees bent, with a pillow under your knees.
While most colds are minor and go away on their own with rest and fluids, symptoms overlap with more serious ailments, such as bronchitis and pneumonia. For example, all three can cause fatigue, but only pneumonia might include a high fever, chills or nausea.
However, if you have other respiratory illnesses such as bronchitis or pneumonia with COVID-19, you may have a wet cough that contains mucus. Does coughing up mucus mean you're getting better? In most cases, coughing up mucus means your body is working to fight off an infection, and it is in the healing stages.
Crackles: These sounds occur if the small air sacs in the lungs fill with fluid and there's air movement in the sacs, such as when you're breathing. The air sacs fill with fluid when a person has pneumonia or heart failure. Wheezing: This sound occurs when the bronchial tubes become inflamed and narrowed.
However, if left untreated, pneumonia can lead to serious complications, including an increased risk of re-infection, and possible permanent damage to your lungs. One complication from bacterial pneumonia is the infection can enter your blood stream and infect other systems in your body.
The main treatment for bacterial pneumonia is antibiotics. You should also rest and drink plenty of water. If you're diagnosed with bacterial pneumonia, your doctor should give you antibiotics to take within four hours.
Some cases of walking pneumonia may go away without antibiotics. However, it may take longer to feel better. Talk to a healthcare provider if you have any concerns about taking antibiotics.