Pneumonia’s been in the news—but what is it, exactly?

Pneumonia is a lung infection caused by either a virus or bacteria. It occurs when the lungs’ air sacs (alveoli) become inflamed and fill up with fluid. It can affect one or both lungs.

With the lungs compromised by infection, oxygen may have trouble reaching your blood. If there is too little oxygen in your blood, your body cells can’t work properly. Because of this and the risk of the infection spreading through the body, pneumonia can cause death.

You may be more susceptible while you’re recovering from a cold or flu, both of which can weaken lungs and make it harder to fight off secondary infections.

Both viral and bacterial pneumonia can be contagious. To prevent infection, wash hands frequently, avoid being around sick people if possible, and maintain a strong immune system by eating a healthy diet rich in an array of colorful fruits and vegetables. If you’re the one sick, do yourself and your community a favor and stay home and rest—nobody wants your germs!

While pneumonia results in more than 1 million hospitalizations and 50,000 deaths each year, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, most cases are mild — so mild in some cases that patients may not even know they have pneumonia, mistaking the symptoms for a bad cold. These mild cases are often called “walking pneumonia” because patients feel well enough to carry on everyday activities.

Pneumonia can be very dangerous, however, and some people are more susceptible to severe cases, including very young children and the elderly, smokers, and people with chronic disease like asthma, heart disease, cancer or diabetes—all conditions that weaken the immune system overall.

Common symptoms of pneumonia include:

• You will likely cough up mucus (sputum) from your lungs. Mucus may be rusty or green or tinged with blood.
• Fast breathing and feeling short of breath.
• Shaking and “teeth-chattering” chills.
• Chest pain that often feels worse when you cough or breathe in.
• Fast heartbeat.
• Feeling very tired or very weak.
• Nausea and vomiting
• Diarrhea

You doctor will make an initial pneumonia diagnosis by listening to your lungs with a stethoscope. If you have pneumonia, your lungs may make crackling or bubbling sounds when you inhale. A chest X-ray and sputum test will confirm the diagnosis and let the doctor know if your pneumonia is bacterial or viral. Bacterial pneumonia should be treated with antibiotics, but doctors may prescribe antibiotics even in cases of viral pneumonia as a precaution against secondary infection.

For any case of pneumonia, you should:

• Drink plenty of fluids
• Get lots of rest
• Do not take cough medicines. Coughing helps your body clear the infection from your lungs.
• Keep a humidifier or vaporizer running to moisten the air and make it easier to clear your lungs
• Take ibuprofen or acetaminophen as needed for discomfort

If you have been fighting a cold and cough for more than 10 days and it doesn’t seem to be clearing up, give our office a call at (631) 377-3629 to make an appointment. It’s important to get pneumonia diagnosed and treated before it causes serious health problems.

Diagnosed with pneumonia? Test for Lyme disease too.

Sometimes it seems that every illness on the East End comes back to Lyme disease and other tick-borne maladies.

As we move into the winter months, we may let our guard down about those nasty little insects, since our exposure to them usually declines once we start spending more of our time indoors than out. But don’t get complacent—ticks are very active in the fall, and in addition to Lyme disease, they can spread a whole host of nasty infections, including two often-overlooked infections called mycoplasma and chlamydophila, both of which can cause pneumonia.

Experts estimate that approximately 2 million cases of mycoplasma pneumoniae occur in the U.S. every year, most often in the fall. Mycoplasma is the tiniest type of organism that can live independently, and more than a dozen species are found in humans. The most common of these, mycoplasma pneumoniae causes respiratory infections like pneumonia and bronchitis. But it can also cause non-respiratory diseases affecting the nervous system, blood, joints, skin, liver, heart and pancreas.

Chlamydophila pneumoniae is a parasitic organism and a known co-infection of Lyme disease. In addition to pneumonia, it can also cause a wide range of other illnesses ranging from arthritis and asthma to myocarditis and fibromyalgia.

Besides being carried by ticks, these organisms are also spread from person to person by tiny droplets released into the air when an ill person sneezes or coughs. So it is certainly possible to acquire mycoplasma pneumoniae without being bitten by a tick. But given the prevalence of ticks and tick-borne disease in our area, it’s not a bad idea to be tested for Lyme disease if you do come down with pneumonia.

If you have been fighting a cold and cough for more than 10 days and it doesn’t seem to be clearing up, give our office a call at (631) 377-3629 to make an appointment. It’s important to get pneumonia diagnosed and treated before it causes serious health problems.

Is the pneumonia vaccine right for you?

If you’re over 65, a routine visit to your doctor is likely to come with a recommendation that you get the pneumonia vaccine. As with any medical treatment, this should be a decision you make, not something you agree to automatically.

If you have a compromised immune system or have been prone to pneumonia or bronchitis in the past, your best bet is probably to get the vaccine. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the vaccine prevents protects nearly half of adults from getting pneumonia at all, and about 75% of adults who receive it from acquiring a possibly life-threatening invasive pneumococcal infection, such as meningitis or bacteremia, a blood infection.

While the vaccine is generally safe, some people do suffer side effects, including fever, nausea, joint tenderness and swelling at the injection site. Serious side effects are uncommon, but they do happen and should be taken into account when deciding whether or not to get the vaccine.

Whether you do or don’t choose to get the vaccine, it’s important to keep a couple of things in mind:

• The vaccine protects against 23 common strains of bacteria that cause pneumonia. It does not protect against ALL bacterial pneumonia, or against pneumonia caused by viruses.
• The pneumonia vaccine may have an expiration date. People are often advised to get a second dose five or 10 years after the first, but there’s some evidence that those secondary doses may not provide as much immunity. Since the danger of complications from pneumonia increases with the age, it might make sense to hold off on the first vaccine until later in life, depending, again, on your overall health.

For most people in reasonably good health, maintaining a nutritious diet and healthy lifestyle are the best offense in the war against pneumonia and other contagious diseases. Unless you manage to sequester yourself away and douse any visitors with Lysol, you are going to be subjected to the germs that run rampant this time of year. Ward them off with lots of fruit and vegetables!

If you have additional questions about whether the pneumonia vaccine is right for you, give us a call. If you have been fighting a cold and cough for more than 10 days and it doesn’t seem to be clearing up, give our office a call at (631) 377-3629 to make an appointment. It’s important to get pneumonia diagnosed and treated before it causes serious health problems.