Pneumonia

Causes and symptoms of pneumonia

What is pneumonia?

Inflammation of the lungs (pneumonia) today refers to the number of serious diseases, despite the wide spectrum antibacterial drugs the most effective drugs in the fight against disease. Before the discovery of antibiotics and their broad application in medical practice pneumonia was considered a deadly disease which caused the death of millions of people of all ages and classes.

When the diagnosis of pneumonia, the patient often goes to the hospital, where the doctors have the opportunity to monitor the healing process using x-ray and laboratory tests.

Causes of pneumonia

The main cause of the pneumonia be viruses, bacteria and fungi with a strong pneumonopathy. These include staphylococci, streptococci, pneumococci, Mycoplasma, viruses of influenza and respiratory viruses, fungi Candida.

In most cases, pneumonia occurs in the background of inflammatory diseases of the upper respiratory tract, but in some cases, the inflammatory process develops directly in the lung tissue.

Risk factors include reduced immunity, colds, burns the mucosa of the upper respiratory tract, the defeat of toxic substances that cause suffocation, inhalation of vapors irritating to the upper respiratory tract, such as dichlorvos.

The symptoms of pneumonia

Pneumonia can occur in acute and chronic form, in turn, the acute inflammatory process may occur in the form of lobar or lobular pneumonia.

Lobar pneumonia is manifested in the form of defeat of an entire lobe of the lung. Agents of the disease become pneumococcus. Most often pathology is not preceded by acute respiratory infections or any other infection. Symptoms of pneumonia appear suddenly and appear acute.

The patient dramatically increases body temperature, reaching high numbers, occurs chills, flank pain on one side. Pain is worse during a deep inspiration and when coughing. Rapidly developing shortness of breath, which may soon join the dry cough. At the initial stage of the disease the cough is rare, over time its intensity may increase, the cough becomes Intrusive. In some cases, in the firstthe day after the onset of symptoms of cough can not be.

Change the appearance of the patient: neck gets bright red or covered with red spots from the side of the affected lung, nostrils swell, lips slightly blue. In some cases, the patient loses consciousness and delirious. A couple of days later the cough is not so dry as in the beginning of the disease, there is a small amount of a transparent viscous sputum streaked with blood, the next day blood in the sputum becomes more pronounced and gives it a brownish tint, color of secretions when coughing resembles rust.

Pain during respiration associated with the presence of nerve fibers in the pleura (a thin film on the surface of the lung). In a healthy person the pleura is not involved in the act of respiration, and the patient with pneumonia she is involved in this process. Lobar pneumonia is almost always causes of disorders of the cardiovascular system, patients with marked tachycardia and changes in heart rhythm. The disease can last for a long time. In the first two weeks patients, generally preserved all the symptoms of pneumonia, making the disease quite heavy, after about Crescent disease is starting to recede. The consequence of the pathology may be an abscess of the lung, and diseases of the heart and blood vessels.

Lobular pneumonia is characterized by inflammation of certain part of the lung. The symptoms develop acutely, the disease begins with a rise in body temperature to high values and with symptoms characteristic of severe intoxication (General weakness, malaise). Cough in most cases appears immediately, it can be dry or wet. As the inflammation proceeds without the formation of pus, when coughing is allocated serous sputum, which can meet streaks of blood. Chest pain may be absent or be mild. In the further course of the disease the amount of secretions increases and they discharge may become purulent. Focal pneumonia is most common due to earlier earlier viral or bacterial infectious diseases of the upper respiratory tract.

With timely treatment and proper drug therapy, the temperature of the patient falls five days after the beginning of the inflammatory process, at about the same time the patient's condition begins to improve. The duration of illness is on average 3-4 weeks. The actual problem today is asymptomatic focal pneumonia and the transition of the acute form of the disease into a chronic, the cause of thisexperts see the self, namely, the frequent use of antibiotics without prescription.

Chronic pneumonia often develops after acute pneumonia, if you save the source of infection in the affected organ. Each exacerbation leaves a trace in the lung in connective tissue, resulting in inflammation of the lung tissue is, thus, a complication of recurrent pneumonia becomes pulmonary fibrosis. The effects of chronic inflammation of the lungs affect the body is disturbed the supply of oxygen to tissues, two times increases the load on the heart, are developing cardiovascular disease. All this leads to cardiopulmonary failure.

Symptoms of pneumonia occurring in the chronic form become pain in the chest with one hand (from the side of the affected lung), cough, slight rise in body temperature to subfebrile, malaise, weakness, in rare cases, hemoptysis.

Treatment of pneumonia

Patients with acute pneumonia and exacerbation of chronic infectious process requiring hospitalization. In all forms of the disease, regardless of the nature of its currents, are assigned antibacterial drugs. Stability the modern strains of bacteria and viruses to penicillins does not allow physicians in the treatment of pneumonia to limit the use of drugs only this group of antibiotics.

The most popular among the specialists received a cephalosporin, amoxicillin, clavulanate, levofloxacin, sulfamethoxazole. The slow development of symptoms it is recommended to use antibiotics, which include sulfur.

Therapy of viral pneumonia requires the use of not only antimicrobial drugs, but also medications with antiviral activity. In fungal forms of pneumonia a doctor must prescribe the drugs that suppress the vital activity of certain species of mushroom.

Patients diagnosed with "pneumonia", it is important to remember about the dangers of self-medication: it can turn the most tragic consequences. Patients need to undergo x-rays, do blood test, it is also desirable to investigate in the laboratory the sputum.