What are the Symptoms of Walking Pneumonia?
What Is Walking Pneumonia?
When most people think of pneumonia, they envision a person who is quite ill and often confined to bed or in the hospital. This is not the case with a form of pneumonia called walking pneumonia. This milder form of pneumonia is caused by an organism called mycoplasma. The symptoms may be so mild that an infected person may be able to carry out their normal activities and feel reasonably well which means that treatment may be delayed. What are the signs and symptoms of walking pneumonia?
The Symptoms of Walking Pneumonia
People with pneumonia commonly have a productive cough with discolored or bloody sputum, high fever and may experience difficulty breathing. With walking pneumonia, it is uncommon for a person to be that sick. In fact, a person infected with walking pneumonia may only feel slightly tired and have a persistent dry cough while continuing to go to work and carry out their normal activities.
The symptoms of walking pneumonia come on gradually, usually two to three weeks after exposure. Common symptoms include low-grade fever, sore throat, congestion, headache, earache and fatigue. Not everyone will have all of these symptoms, and some people will have symptoms so mild that they only see their doctor after their cough fails to get better. Unlike a cold, the symptoms of walking pneumonia gradually get worse without treatment.
Diagnosis
People with walking pneumonia commonly see their doctor after their cough fails to get better over a period of time. To diagnose walking pneumonia, a doctor looks for certain signs. When listening to the lungs, they may hear abnormal lung sounds called rales and rhonchi at which time they will normally order a chest x-ray. This will usually show a characteristic pattern that suggests pneumonia. These signs of walking pneumonia will usually prompt a doctor to order sputum cultures and blood tests to confirm the diagnosis so that treatment can begin.
Other signs of walking pneumonia that aren’t specific and can be seen with other conditions are a red, itchy rash, redness of the eardrums, redness of the conjunctiva (the white part) of the eye, enlarged lymph nodes in the neck and a red throat.
The Bottom Line
The signs and symptoms of walking pneumonia are usually mild and may mimic a bad cold. This is why it’s important for anyone with a persistent cough to see their doctor for evaluation and a possible chest x-ray – especially if they have a fever. The sooner walking pneumonia is diagnosed and treated, the faster the symptoms will disappear. Fortunately, unlike some types of pneumonia, walking pneumonia is usually not a life-threatening condition and most people recover completely from the condition after undergoing proper medical treatment.
References
E-medicine.com. “Mycoplasma Infections”
Merck Manual. Eighteenth edition. 2006.