How often have you heard warnings from your mother pleading you to be careful of the cold outside if you don’t want to fall prey to pneumonia? How often has your grandmother said the same thing? Even though this is directly not related with common cold or catching a cold, it is the pathogens that they were talking about. There would once be a time when this would be a common yet deadly disease where the poor patient suffered through chills and shivers often even sacrificing their life to this disease.
They were often segregated since the people were ignorant of the disease. They took it to be contagious. All this now are just stories from your grandmother’s mouth and nothing more than that. Times were different then. From clusters of villages to the metropolitan cities, pneumonia now has reduced a lot giving way to other modified disease. By now the doctors have created a super procedure to take care of it. But before we go to depths, here’s a brief insight to what exactly this is.
Pneumonia is primarily a lung oriented disease which is mainly bacterial, viral, fungal or parasitical. It is either or more than one of these pathogens that causes inflammation in the alveoli of the lungs which is what is termed as pneumonia. Our lung is parted in two with lung containing air sacs. These air sacs are what are defined as alveoli. These air sacs get filled with fluid or pus by any one of the above mentioned pathogens. Pneumonia is such a disease that has seen both the good and bad in the people.
For the weaker souls, pneumonia can be as deadly as death itself however the death rates due to pneumonia continues to decrease to a spec. in an American survey about 17% of the pneumonia patients come out healthy. However there is always the other 5 % that fall prey to grayness. In US, about 3 million people develop pneumonia and often the results are satisfying. Even India itself has seen and do still see pneumonia patients suffering but here also the results have been satisfying enough to prove that pneumonia now can be controlled and cured without having to worry about only death. Pneumonia has a target market of mainly infants and younger children and people above the senior citizenship age which in India is 60 above.
Pneumonia Symptoms And Causes:
This article educate you about what are the main causes and symptoms of pneumonia which will help you to know what is your state when you are attacked by this ovulation.
Causes Of Pneumonia:
The major reasons or causes for pneumonia can be described below as based on its different pathogens here is a list of causes to pneumonia:
1. Viral:
This viral pneumonia type usually affects the small infants and the aged people where the virus from the respiratory system introduces itself to the air sacs and gets lodged in it. If there is flu on the go, these viruses can take a wrong turn towards seriousness, but at normal times this is usually harmless and a proper care and treatment shall take it right off the hook. Intrusion of bacteria might worsen the condition.
2. Bacterial:
Yet another pathogens to cause pneumonia is the bacteria which is one of the common pathogens present everywhere where they need to cause havoc. When your grandparents warned you about cold, it is probably this type of pneumonia they were trying to save you from. This bacterial conditions are much serious in work and has no age limit. It can affect anyone and everyone and usually occurs after a serious cold or flu when the body’s immune system is down. The bacterium responsible for this is streptococcus pneumoniae.
3. Mycoplasma:
These are neither viruses nor bacteria but these ones share characteristics of both the pathogens combined. Mycoplasma pneumonia however are very sober and contained in kind where the effects are sublime and easily treatable. The mild case might include a slight fever with a little cough. They often steer away from young ones and affect the older children or aged people.
4. Drug Abuse:
Those were pathogen based types and here comes the cautionary elements that trigger pneumonia. The first starts with drug abuse, especially the ones that are snorted with the nasal cavity or involves oral intake. This can directly lodge into the air sacs while passing down the food or wind pipe. The same goes with too much smoking, tobacco to be precise. Alcohol consumption in liters each day also plays an important role.
5. Medical Conditions:
Often certain medical conditions can be held responsible for pneumonia creation in your body the first and the foremost condition being asthma. Any breathing problem including the lung involved can be a key to pneumonia. Diabetes or cystic fibrosis might even be the case.
6. Cold:
Catching a severe cold can easily trigger pneumonia. If a person is suffering from the symptoms of cold, then there is a high chance, that he or she might be going down with pneumonia as well. It has been seen that in most of the pneumonia, a person has been affected with vital fever first and pneumonia is just the next stage. This is one of the prime causes of pneumonia. Cold will cause sever damage to your body if you have a weak immunity system and your body cannot fight the spread of germs in your body.
7. The Health Care Pneumonia:
This type of pneumonia can be said to be a bacteria infection. This generally happens to people who are residing in a health care facility for a long time. It is common in both men and women and is one of the most probable pneumonia causes. This type of pneumonia is can be transferred through mere touch and staying in contact with the affected person.
If a person resides in an hospital for a long time, then there is a good amount of possibility that he or she will be suffering from pneumonia pretty easily. People generally take antibiotics for fighting this type of pneumonia.
8. Hospital Acquired Pneumonia:
Hospital-acquired pneumonia is also one of the prime pneumonia causes. If you stay in an hospital for a long time for curing a disease or something similar, then a long stay in such facilities can turn out to be one of the many causes of pneumonia. The risk is even more in case of persons who are using some kind of breathing machine during their phase of recovery. The bacteria causing this type of pneumonia will be more resistant to antibiotics and in this case, even medication will not help you.
From next time you get admitted in such a health-care facility, don’t forget to make sure of the fact that proper taken is been taken care of you. One doesn’t just gets admitted in an hospital to catch pneumonia instead of getting cured from another disease.
9. Fungi:
Fungi is another cause behind the occurrence of pneumonia. Generally, fungi can be said to one of the main causes of pneumonia for those people who are suffering from some kind of chronic pain already. It may also occur in men and women, who have a weak immune system. This type of fungi can be found in soil. According to studies conducted on this subject, it has been seen that the fungi is found or bird droppings as well.
10. Similar To Bacterial Organisms:
There are times, when certain bacterial-like organisms might be responsible for causing pneumonia. According to doctors, there are still some similar organisms to bacteria which can cause pneumonia. This type of pneumonia is however less harmful and does not affect the body like the normal one does. Among all the pneumonia causes, this is the most ignored ones and it can easily damage your body and ruin you physical condition as well.
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Symptoms Of Pneumonia:
The usual signs and symptoms of pneumonia are:
1. Fever And Chills:
A high body temperature does not even cut it when we say pneumonial fever is ahead. These fevers are somewhat more exaggerated than the normal fevers with an extreme high body temperature so bad that you are bed ridden for a while. Fatigue is common even though all you do is lie down in bed. This is because of your now shattered immune system. The highlight to this is the bone cutting nerve wrecking chills that run down your spine with a cold sweat.
2. Breathlessness:
This is an obvious condition since all that is to be done is to lodge the free air sacs with the pathogens. These pathogens once they start filling the air sacs causes an episode of shortage of breath and breathlessness with whizzing cough which may be dry or mucous filled.
3. Chest Pain:
The chest housing the lungs is obviously a victim to this condition. A chest pain is often felt at around this time which might be mild or sharp in nature depending upon the severity of the condition or the patient’s immune system. Often this might accompany a heavy chest feeling with a stuffed suffocating feel.
4. Coughing Up Blood:
This is however reserved for until later when the pneumonia condition has taken a turn for worse. This is the deadly part of pneumonia which is extremely rare and only occurs at the end of the serious process. With a mucous filled cough one might even cough up chunks of blood.
5. Fatigue:
Among the numerous symptoms of pneumonia, this one is one of the most common ones. The symptom of fatigue is pretty common during pneumonia. The symptom is common in people of almost all ages and people suffer from it pretty frequently. A person will be experiencing this severe fatigue symptom if he or she has been suffering from pneumonia for a long time. Fatigue generally weakens the body and makes it sick from the core. It is really hard to deal wit this fatigue issues of pneumonia and it can be really hard for almost anyone to cope with it.
6. Nausea:
The feeling of nausea is another common issue in both men and women of almost all ages. A person will experience the feeling of vomiting and random pains and swelling in the lower stomach if he or she is going through pneumonia. This particular symptom proves that pneumonia can be really harmful and it can make you sick, very sick. So if you’re seeing the signs and symptoms of pneumonia in you (specifically this one) then you should take care of it and adopt some proper measures to deal with it as well.
7. Shortness Of Breath:
Among all the symptoms of pneumonia, this is the first one dealing with breath issues. A person will be facing some short breath problems during pneumonia along with body aches and fatigue as well (discussed above). Shortness of breath is one of the most common pneumonia symptoms seen specifically in old people. This is one of the most irritating and rather harmful symptoms of pneumonia. The worst case scenario is you will loose subsequent amount of breath while performing any activity and this will hamper your body functioning ability and bring up some other problems such as focus and concentration problems.
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8. Diarrhea:
Sometimes stomach problems are some of the most common symptoms of pneumonia. Stomach issues such as diarrhea is often associated with abdominal swelling and sever stomach pains as well. This is one of the most possible symptoms of pneumonia and is commonly sighted as well. There are many ways to treat diarrhea and it is recommended that you consult a doctor and remove this diarrhea problem as if it is not treated within the right time it can be prove to be extremely harmful for you.
9. Cough:
Besides coughing blood, some random coughs can also be stated as one of the prime pneumonia symptoms. Coughs are often said to be some of the main problems when it comes to dealing with pneumonia. A person will be coughing almost throughout the day, if he or she is dealing with pneumonia. Coughs are also associated some upper body aches which can turn out to be bad for you as well.
10. Sweating:
When it comes to the best pneumonia symptoms, you will have to know almost anything and everything on this matter. Excessive sweating cane be said to a relevant sign for detecting pneumonia. If a person is suffering from pneumonia, then sweating is one of the common outcomes. These are often associated with coughing, shaking, chills, and even chest pains as well.
