Pneumonia is a respiratory condition in which there is inflammation of the lung.

Community-acquired pneumonia refers to pneumonia in people who have not recently been in the hospital or another health care facility (nursing home, rehabilitation facility).

 

The most common symptoms of pneumonia are:

• Cough (with some pneumonias you may cough up greenish or yellow mucus, or even bloody mucus)
• Fever, which may be mild or high
• Shaking chills
• Shortness of breath (may only occur when you climb stairs)

Additional symptoms include:

• Sharp or stabbing chest pain that gets worse when you breathe deeply or cough
• Headache
• Excessive sweating and clammy skin
• Loss of appetite, low energy, and fatigue
• Confusion, especially in older people

Pneumonia is a common illness that affects millions of people each year in the United States. Germs called bacteria, viruses, and fungi may cause pneumonia.

Ways you can get pneumonia include:

• Bacteria and viruses living in your nose, sinuses, or mouth may spread to your lungs.
• You may breathe some of these germs directly into your lungs.
• You breathe in (inhale) food, liquids, vomit, or secretions from the mouth into your lungs

Pneumonia caused by bacteria tends to be the most serious. In adults, bacteria are the most common cause of pneumonia.

• The most common pneumonia-causing germ in adults is Streptococcus pneumoniae (pneumococcus).
• Atypical pneumonia, often called walking pneumonia, is caused by bacteria such as Legionella pneumophila, Mycoplasma pneumoniae and Chlamydophila pneumoniae.
• Pneumocystis jiroveci pneumonia is sometimes seen in people whose immune system is impaired (due to AIDS or certain medications that suppress the immune system).
• Staphylococcus aureus, Moraxella catarrhalis, Streptococcus pyogenes, Neisseria meningitidis, Klebsiella pneumoniae, or Haemophilus influenzae are other bacteria that can cause pneumonia.
• Tuberculosis can cause pneumonia in some people, especially those with a weak immune system.

Viruses are also a common cause of pneumonia, especially in infants and young children.

 

 

If you have pneumonia, you may be working hard to breathe, or breathing fast.

Crackles are heard when listening to your chest with a stethoscope. Other abnormal breathing sounds may also be heard through the stethoscope or via percussion (tapping on your chest wall).

Meadowbrook Urgent Care doctors will likely take a chest x-ray if pneumonia is suspected.

Some patients may need other tests, including:

• CBC to check white blood cell count
• Arterial blood gases to see if enough oxygen is getting into your blood from the lungs
• CT scan of the chest
• Gram's stain and culture of your sputum to look for the organism causing your symptoms
• Pleural fluid culture if there is fluid in the space surrounding the lungs

With treatment, most patients will improve within 2 weeks. Elderly or debilitated patients may need longer treatment.

Those who may be more likely to have complicated pneumonia include:

• Older adults or very young children
• People whose immune system does not work well
• People with other, serious medical problems such as diabetes or cirrhosis of the iver

Your doctor may want to make sure your chest x-ray becomes normal again after you take a course of antibiotics. However, it may take many weeks for your x-ray to clear up.

 

• Worsening respiratory symptoms
• Shortness of breath, shaking chills, or persistent fevers
• Rapid or painful breathing
• A cough that brings up bloody or rust-colored mucus
• Chest pain that worsens when you cough or inhale
• Night sweats or unexplained weight loss
• Signs of pneumonia and weak immune system, as with HIV or chemotherapy

Infants with pneumonia may not have a cough. Call us your infant makes grunting noises or the area below the rib cage is retracting while breathing.