What to do when having a pneumonia?

Pneumonia is an inflammation inside one or both lungs. It is easily recognized by a number of symptoms. When you have got pneumonia it is recommended to go see a doctor. There are also a few things you can do to ease the pain and to stimulate the recovery process.

What is pneumonia?

Pneumonia is an inflammation inside one or both lungs. This is often caused by a virus. When the patient has insufficient resistance, he is more susceptible to viruses. The virus can easily penetrate into the body and manifest as pneumonia. Smokers, the elderly and adolescent patients with glandular fever have an increased risk of pneumonia. Pneumonia can be recognized by a number of symptoms.

Symptoms

• High Fever
• Problems with breathing
• Breathlessness
• Colds
• coughing up blood (rare)
• Headache
• Increased sweating

What to do against pneumonia?

Pneumonia can be a serious illness. When someone suffers from pneumonia, it is therefore always recommended to go see a doctor. If you have an acute pneumonia, there are some things you can do to accelerate the recovery process and ease the pain.

What can you do?

• Drink plenty of water
• taking Paracetamol
• Cold compress on forehead
• taking cough syrup

It is important to drink plenty of water when you have pneumonia; this brings the fever down and helps the body to get toxins out of the body. Paracetamol reduces pain and inflammation. A cold compress can relieve pain when a headache occurs. Furthermore, the mucus from the lungs can get into the throat where it can cause a throat inflammation. The mucus is sometimes very sticky, so it's wise to take a sip of cough syrup.

What can the GP do?

• Painkillers prescription
• Anti-inflammatory prescription
• Antibiotic prescribing
• Refer to a hospital

Painkillers speak for themselves, they relieve the pain. The GP can also prescribe anti-inflammatory drugs, which have almost the same effect as antibiotics, but usually cause no resistance (against the drug) in the virus or bacteria. Since pneumonia can quickly turn into a life threatening disease, the doctor usually prescribe antibiotics immediately. The antibiotics should cure the pneumonia within 14 days. In some cases you can be referred to the hospital, this happens when you have a high fever or are coughing up blood.

Sources: www.todio.nl