Causes of Pneumonia, Symptoms and Treatment

by John Mathew

Pneumonia is a common but potentially deadly inflammation of the lungs, usually caused by an infection. When the air sacs in the lungs become infected, pus and other liquid fill them, making it difficult to breathe and difficult for oxygen to reach your blood. Pneumonia can affect a single section of your lungs, in which case it's called lobar pneumonia, or it can affect patches throughout both lungs, in which case it's called multifocal pneumonia. If both lungs are infected, it's known as multibar pneumonia.
There are about 30 different causes of pneumonia. However, they all fall into one of these categories:

* Infective pneumonia: Inflammation and infection of the lungs and bronchial tubes that occurs when a bacteria (bacterial pneumonia) or virus (viral pneumonia) gets into the lungs and starts to reproduce.

* Aspiration pneumonia: An inflammation of the lungs and bronchial tubes caused by inhaling vomit, mucous, or other bodily fluids. Aspiration pneumonia can also be caused by inhaling certain chemicals.

Typical symptoms are cough, fever, sweats, shivers, being off food, and feeling generally unwell. Headaches, and aches and pains are common. You usually make more sputum which may become yellow/green, and is sometimes bloodstained. You may become breathless, breathe fast, and develop a 'tight chest'. A sharp pain in the side of the chest may develop if the infection involves the pleura. (This is the membrane between the lung and the chest wall.) A doctor may hear 'crackles' in the chest when listening with a stethoscope.

When a person encounters the symptoms of pneumonia - cough, shortness of breath, chest pain that fluctuates with breathing, fever accompanied with chills and sweats or aggravation of a flu or cold - he or she should consult a doctor right away because this condition may become lethal in some cases if left untreated.

If bacteria cause the pneumonia it can usually be easily treated with antibiotics. Viruses do not respond to antibiotics, but if your pneumonia is caused by a virus antibiotics may be used to help prevent any secondary infections.

Doctors treat pneumonia based on the type of pneumonia a person has as well as other individual factors, such as age and overall health. Bacterial pneumonia is usually treated with antibiotics. Fungal pneumonia is treated with antifungal agents. Viral pneumonia may be treated with antiviral medications but is more often treated simply with recommendations of rest and plenty of fluids. In addition, for all types of pneumonia, doctors often suggest taking over-the-counter medications to reduce fever and pain.

If the pneumonia is severe, or the person affected is either very old or frail they may need to be treated in hospital where antibiotics and extra fluids and can be given straight into the vein (intravenously). If breathing is difficult, extra oxygen can be given through a facemask. About one in every six people with pneumonia are ill enough to need this kind of specialised care.

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Pneumonia - The simple facts and the cures

What is Pneumonia: Pneumonia is an infection that causes the air sacs in the lungs to fill with fluid, making it hard for you to breathe, and causes you to cough up phlegm. Pneumonia is an ancient Greek word, which means 'lungs'. Pneumonia can occur in patients of all age groups, but young children, and older people are especially at risk.

What causes Pneumonia: Pneumonia is caused by many things. However, bacteria are the most common causes of pneumonia. The most common bacteria that causes pneumonia is 'Streptococcus pneumoniae', Streptococcus pyogenes or Group A Streptococcus can also cause pneumonia. Workers that are exposed to cattle are at a risk for pneumonia caused by anthrax.

Symptoms Of Pneumonia: There are quite a few symptoms that may show up with Pneumonia, the most common ones are: Cough with a yellow or greenish mucus or Phlegm, Fever often with chills and the shakes, Soreness or pain in the chest, worsened by breathing deeply or coughing, Shallow breathing, Shortness of breath, Bloody mucus or phlegm, Headache, Sweating and sometimes clammy skin, Fatigue and weakness, Decreased appetite. If left untreated Pneumonia can advance to 'blood poisoning', and severe respiratory distress. Treatment For Pneumonia: If you have a bacterial pneumonia, you will need to take an antibiotic. The antibiotic will depend on your age, and your medical conditions. You should also drink lots of fluids to stay hydrated, since this helps your body fight the pneumonia. Anti-fever medicines such as Tylenol or Advil may also help you feel better. Cough as much as you comfortably can, to help clear the mucus and phlegm from your lungs. You must avoid cigarette or other tobacco smoke while you recover from pneumonia, since smoking hurts your body's ability to fight infection and makes your healing take a lot longer. If you've been diagnosed with viral pneumonia, you need to rest and drink plenty of fluids. If you work much or over-exert yourself when you have viral pneumonia, you can possibly get sicker. You can use over the counter medicines to reduce fever, body aches, and cough. You can take over the counter medicines such as Tylenol to help you feel better, but you still must rest and drink lots of fluids in order for your body to heal and get better.

Pneumonia Prevention: There are a few things you can do to help reduce your risk for getting Pneumonia, such as: Washing your hands frequently, Don t smoke, and avoid second-hand smoke, Stay away from those who have a cold or the flu, Drink plenty of fluids, Keep Active, and if your in the Hospital try deep breathing exercises and cough up any mucus or Phlegm to help keep the lungs exercised and clear.

There is a website that provides cures, facts and other great information on Pneumonia and numerous medical conditions, the website is called: All About Health, and can be found at this url:

http://www.rb59.com/medical-health-info

By Robert W. BenjaminCopyright © 2007 You may publish this article in your ezine, newsletter, or on your web site as long as it is reprinted in its entirety and without modification except for formatting needs or grammar corrections.

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Robert W. Benjamin has been in the software business on the internet for over 5 years, and has been producing low-cost software for the past 25+ years. He first released products on the AMIGA and C64 computer systems in the late 1970's-80's.Fishing Stringer http://www.fishingstringer.com

Overview On The Symptoms And Treatment For Pneumonia

by Ethan Armitage

Infections caused by parasites and bacteria can affect the whole human body. If the infection is located in the lungs, then it is called pneumonia. This condition can cause serious complications if it is left untreated.

The inflammation of the lungs caused by the bacterial infection may not be a serious matter but it can become a life-threatening one if the infected person has a weakened immune system.

Pneumonia can be cured with antibiotics nowadays, but in the early 1900's, before the antibiotics were discovered; it was a serious condition that used to kill many people.

By the infections' location, pneumonia can be divided in two main types: lobar pneumonia, when the infection affects only one lung and bronchial pneumonia, the condition that affects both lungs. Thanks to the discovery of the antibiotics, what used to be a deadly condition in the past, has now turned into an easy to treat disease. The treatment and the cure may take, depending on every patient, between one and two weeks.

Coughing and fever are the first symptoms ever to appear in case of pneumonia. As times passes by, the fever worsens and a green liquid will appear in the cough. In the more advanced stages of the disease, the infected persons will experience pain in the chest, loosing appetite, vomiting, coughing blood and bluish skin. The symptoms vary and will not be encountered by all patients. They depend on the physical state of every person and the nature of the infection.

A doctor should be consulted immediately if a person experiences any of the symptoms mentioned above. The doctor will order some blood tests and an X-ray test and if the diagnosis will be set on pneumonia, the treatment using antibiotics will start right away.

In normal cases, the treatment will be done at home, but in more advanced cases, those who were discovered later, hospitalization may be required for a few days. Before the administration of the antibiotics, the doctor will perform some tests to establish whether the patient is allergic to any types of antibiotics and the result of those tests will be taken into consideration when prescribing a treatment.

Prevention of this disease is hard to be done because this disease can be contacted everywhere.

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Resources about pneumonia symptoms and walking pneumonia .For an understandable diagnosis of pneumonia

The Danger Signs of Pneumonia

by gayle

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), pneumonia is the leading killer of children that causes more casualties than AIDS, malaria, and measles combined. Approximately two million pneumonia-related deaths occue each year, accounting for one out of every five child deaths. The annual incidence of pneumonia is estimated at 151 million new cases per year, of which 11-20 million cases accounting for about 7 to 13 percent of lung disease cases are severe enough to require hospitalization. Yet too little is being done to reduce lung disease-related deaths among children.

A study was found that only about one-fifth of caregivers know the "danger signs" of pneumonia, including its two tell-tale symptoms of fast breathing (17%) and difficult breathing (21%). A little more than half of children sick with pneumonia receive proper care. Antibiotics, the recommended treatment was only given to 1 in 5 children with pneumonia in the early 1990s.

It was found that only a small number within the population existed in the prevalence of pneumonia and in caregivers' knowledge of pneumonia's " danger signs." It is also a discouraging fact that there is an unequal care for children with pneumonia. Children from richer families and better educated mothers and those living in urban areas were more likely to receive appropriate medical treatment.

Pneumonia is an inflammation of the lung, usually caused by an infection. Three common causes are bacteria, viruses and fungi. Most cases of pneumonia among children occur sporadically and not in outbreaks. People most at risk are older than 65 or younger than 2 years of age, or already have health problems. Person-to-person transmission may occur by direct contact with infectious secretions.

Approximately 10 to 20% of all children less than 5 years old in developing countries acquire pneumonia each year. About 1% of pneumonia cases result in bronchiectasis, which increases the risk of recurrent infections. Sometimes, a child's only symptom is rapid breathing. When the pneumonia is in the lower part of the lungs near the abdomen, there may be no breathing problems at all. However, there may be fever and abdominal pain or vomiting.

When pneumonia is caused by bacteria, an infected child usually becomes sick relatively quick. The child may also experience a sudden onset of high fever and unusually rapid breathing. When pneumonia is caused by a certain virus, symptoms tend to appear more gradually and are often less severe than in pneumonia caused by bacteria.

Some types of pneumonia cause symptoms that give important clues about which germs are causing the illness. In older children and adolescents, for example, pneumonia due to Mycoplasma (also called walking pneumonia) is notorious for causing a sore throat and headache in addition to the usual symptoms of pneumonia. In general, pneumonia is not contagious, but the upper respiratory viruses that lead to it are, so it is best to keep a child away from anyone who has an upper respiratory tract infection.

According to WHO, reducing child deaths from pneumonia requires implementing effective prevention programs. This include promoting breastfeeding, reducing child under-nutrition, encouraging hand washing and raising immunization rates. A pneumococcal vaccine may be available for routine use which would likely have a significant effect in reducing child deaths from pneumonia.


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About pneumonia symptoms and treatment

by Groshan Fabiola

Every year there are people that die of pneumonia, especially older people, those with chronic illnesses or impaired immune systems, but also affects young and healthy people. There are many types of pneumonia with various signs and symptoms that usually appear after a flu or a complicated cold. Pneumonia occurs suddenly with chest pain, chills, fever, cough and shortness of breath. Antibiotics are used to treat the most common forms of bacterial pneumonias, antibiotic-resistant pneumonias are a growing problem.

Signs and symptoms

It is not easy to have a cristal clear diagnosis of pneumonia, because often is mistaken with colds and flus. Bacterial pneumonia There are many bacteria that cause pneumonia and you may develop it if you had a viral upper respiratory infection such as influenza, in older people and people with a chronic illness or compromised immune system the symtoms are not that severe and evident as in young people which have shaking chills, sweating, a high fever, chest pain and cough that produces thick, greenish or yellow phlegm.

Viral pneumonia Viral pneumonia is more often during winter time and is caused by a a dozen different viruses. Its first symptoms are: muscle pain and fatigue, headache, fever, a dry cough all those symptoms are more severe in people with cardiovascular or lung disease. When having a viral pneumonia you are susceptible of developing a secondary bacterial pneumonia, with the progression of the disease you may experience breathless and a cough that produces a whitish phlegm.

Mycoplasma Pneumonia Mycoplasma is a tiny bacterium that causes symptoms similar to those caused by other bacterial and viral infections but more mild and flu like symptoms. A "walking pneumonia," is caused by mycoplasma, you may not even know you had pneumonia. Mycoplasma pneumonia spreads easily and affects children, young adults in community. Gives good results if treated with the appropiate antibiotics.

Chlamydia

Chlamydia pneumonia is common among school-age children and causes similar symptoms with those of mycoplasma pneumonia. Has a good response in antibiotic therapy, the chlamydia bacterium that causes pneumonia is different from the one that causes sexually transmitted infections. Pneumonia may be caused by some types of fungi which spread through bird droppings, with symptoms of acute pneumonia and chronic pneumonia. Pneumocystis carinii causes infection and pneumonia in people with AIDS. It also affects people with organ transplants, chemotherapy, on corticosteroids or other immune-suppressing drugs. Signs and symptoms include a cough that doesn't go away, trouble breathing and fever. Some tests need to be done: laboratory test results, X-ray findings, demographics. Home care is possible even in severe cases if the caregivers give the chest therapy and antibiotics intravenous and if good support and home nursing services are assured.

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You can find great content regarding pneumonia symptoms, pneumonia vaccine and many moreby visiting http://www.pneumonia-center.com/

Pneumonia Types And Characteristic Symptoms

by Ethan Armitage

Pneumonia is a condition of the respiratory system, it is an infectious disease and can affect one or both lungs of the patient. Two hundred years ago, pneumonia used to be a leading cause of death but now it can be treated easily with antibiotics, as the infection is caused by viruses and bacteria. Still, pneumonia may represent a danger for patients with the immune system affected or for old people.

The general symptoms of pneumonia are coughing, fever and chest pain. Other than that, the symptoms vary depending on the causes of the condition and on many other factors.

Viral pneumonia is caused by viruses' infections and it represents more than half the cases of pneumonia in the world. This condition's symptoms are:

* - Dry cough * - Chest pain followed by headache and fever * - A general state of weakness and tiredness

For the bacterial pneumonia the symptoms are:

* - High fever * - Coldness accompanied by accelerated heart beat and shivers * - Coughing eliminates a green liquid * - The skin turns bluish

The people with a higher risk for encountering pneumonia are the children and the elder people. Old people usually encounter pneumonia caused by viruses or bacteria while people under the age of 40 are usually affected by mycoplasmal pneumonia. Although this last form of pneumonia is considered a mild form, it is highly contagious and it can generate complications if left untreated.

Mycoplasmal pneumonia shows symptoms like:

* - Sore throat * - Dry cough * - Fever * - Painful articulations * - General state of tiredness

In the cases of children infection, pneumonia can be quite disturbing generating an uncomfortable general state, fever, breathlessness and bluish skin.

When a person discovers more than 2 symptoms of pneumonia, he or she should immediately consult a doctor and get a treatment because this condition can aggravate and lead to serious complications. If it is discovered in its early stages, pneumonia can be easily treated at home with antibiotics, but in the advanced stages, hospitalization is required.

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Learn the pneumonia symptoms for a diagnosis of pneumonia , good walking pneumonia overview available.