posted
I have a dear friend with asthma which she developed after having had pneumonia one time. She's 18 and gets bronchitis easily with any bad cold. She never has a fever when she gets infections.
When she gets a bad cold she sometimes coughs up a small amount of blood, which has been happening recently. When she told me this I freaked but she acted like it was no big deal, happens all the time sort of thing.
I asked her if she had ever told any doctor about that symptom and after a while she admitted that no she hadn't. To me that's a scary as heck symptom. I'm worried about tuberculosis and stuff like that. I asked her permission to ask you about it and she said okay. CT, Theca, what do you think? Is coughing up blood something she ought to tell somebody and have checked? What might it be a symptom of? Why if she's only 18 does she get bronchitis or sinus infection so often and not even have fever (which makes me think she's not mounting a very effective immune response)? We must not lose this person. She's an essential person. The world must drop what it's doing and make sure she is well before carrying on.
[ September 15, 2003, 10:41 PM: Message edited by: ana kata ]
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posted
I had a bad case of bronchitis that had me coughing up blood. I had a bad cough for several days before; my mom thought my throat was just rubbed raw. In any case, I freaked out and insisted on going to the doctor. I managed to heal up pretty well. Never had pnemonia, though, so my experience might not help.
posted
Definitely. Coughing up blood is not a good symptom. It's not normal for asthmatics, unless there's something terribly wrong or they've got really dry lungs, which is not common for asthmatics, for whom (at least for me) some of the problem is that their lungs are prone to mucous. So tell your friend to definitely get some treatment. Good luck!
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<Bump to put this back on first page so when CT and Theca do their hatrack rounding they will see it.>
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One of my siblings had chronic bronchitis while growing, but no coughing up blood. Really, shouldn't anything that involves the coughing of blood be a no brainer trip to the doctor? Like, if you went to her and told her that you had been coughing up blood would she say, "No big deal, happens all the time."
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posted
It never hurts to have things like that checked out.
I wonder if her illnesses are more related to allergies and asthma rather than infections?
If I were seeing her I'd be asking how often is she coughing blood, what does it look like, what does the mucus look like? Is she losing weight without trying, having terrible sweats every night such that she has to change clothes? What meds does she take? It's really hard to say anything useful without knowing what sort of workup she has already had from her doctor. Physical exam, xrays, breathing tests, etc could potentially be very useful to diagnose her problems. And don't bother asking her these questions, and then posting her answers. She probably ought to just see or at least tell her real doctor.
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posted
*sighs* it's quite likely it is more related to asthma and allergies, since it is fall. no weight loss, no cold sweats, it was MAYBE a tiny drop of blood in mucus, nothing big enough to actually chance the color of it or anything. small, and only that much in there every now and then for two days. It was a cold, with sore throat, coughing and being very tired. And I was on pancough.
This is NOT a major deal, it's quite likely the blood was just from an irritated throat or something. And it doesn't happen frequently, just when I get a HORRIBLE cold, meaning once, maybe but highly unlikely twice a year.
posted
She had pneumonia, but no fever. The doctors almost ruled out pneumonia because she had no fever, yet something else (a chest xray?) showed it to be pneumonia.
She never gets fever even with flu or anything.
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Theca, do you think mycoplasma re:the pneumonia? Always look worse on Xray than the physical exam would suggest.
I defer to Theca's excellent post above. Coughing up blood (aka hemoptysis) can have pulmonary or cardiac causes, or it can just be from irritation in the throat from coughing a lot. Regardless, she should be checked out with this symptom in mind.
Kayla's link to Andrew Weil is exquisite.
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ana kata, I've been thinking about your question regarding the lack of a fever, and there's very little I feel comfortable adding to that part of the discussion. Mycoplasma pneumonia (aka "walking pneumonia," the most typical kind in college-age students) often comes without a fever, just a persisting cough that won't go away. The Xray classically looks much worser than you'd expect. But kids have such a different physiology than adults, and I don't know how much to worry about lack of elevated temperature. We do see much higher fevers in kids, but I don't know just where the expected curve lies.
posted
Since we are moving in this direction, I have a couple of questions.
My daughter, the one who had walking pneumonia this spring and straight up pneumonia (after a diagnosis of viral bronchitis it turned into a pneumonia that was almost immediately cleared up by antibiotics.), complained of some lung pain when she was tired, and once when she went to the park. It stopped the next day. Was there any relation? We even wondered if she had pulled or strained some muscles in the area.
From my own experience, ak, I got bronchitis when I was younger every year at peak of my allergies in the late summer. Even now I'm experiencing some tightness, though not much phlegm. If it gets quite a bit worse, I'll go, but I'm actually fairly decent at fighting bacterial infections myself and I prefer to. (Don't worry, I'm aware of what symptoms to hang with, and what constitute "get thee to a doctor.") I usually didn't get much fever either.
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Noemon, yes it's me. I took out this name because of a one dimensional statue in my honor that Paul Ganssle (the former poster formerly known as Paul or Otaku) commissioned, in conjuction with this whole new era of galaxy-wide Anne Kate adulation which has recently been ushered in amidst much fanfare. He made the statue to exist in time only with no spatial dimensions. It's quite a beautiful stretch of duration, and I was very honored. Ana and kata are greek words for back and forth, and they are typically used by mathematicians as the directions in the fourth spatial dimension, as in up/down, left/right, forward/backward, ana/kata.
CT and Theca, thank you both very much. She never gets fever ever, even with flu or infections or anything. I worry about that because of what it might mean, but also because it means infections are going to be missed her whole life, because the doctors will always rule out that possibility based on her lack of fever.
She's had two bad colds now in the last 2 months. I'd like to figure out a way to get her lungs in better long term shape. What do you think of her adding guaifenesin to her toolbox for combatting her seemingly endless coughs and congestion? It seems for me to foster an environment less friendly to bacteria. She must use (codeine) cough supressants to sleep sometimes and for work to keep her from coughing convulsively. I suggested she also try guaifenesin either along with or in place of the suppressants and see if that helps. Does that seem like a good idea to you?
Is it at all normal for a bout of pneumonia to leave someone with bad asthma when they didn't have it before? I'm just wondering if there's something being missed here.
[ September 16, 2003, 11:18 AM: Message edited by: ana kata ]
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posted
I just know she's got symptoms of it she fights every day. Convulsive coughing and chest tightness and stuff like that.
Anna, maybe you don't call it bad since it's only come close to killing you once or twice? It seems pretty bad to me, at least. I know you do a great job dealing with it, but I just want to be sure there's not something being overlooked that could make it better. <<<<Anna>>>>
[ September 16, 2003, 12:19 PM: Message edited by: ana kata ]
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posted
Guiefenesin is a pretty safe drug, for adults anyway, used as an expectorant/mucolytic to help thin out, and loosen mucus so it can be gotten rid of more easily. The extended release 12 hour formula is what I usually give. It's great for people who are having trouble getting rid of mucus from colds, sinusitis, bronchitis, pneumonia, etc. But it isn't for everyday use for asthma or other chronic conditions. So I don't know. I don't know what the guiefenesin would be treating right now so I can't recommend it.
Some people don't develop fevers very often. Others can't tell when they have one, and so don't check their temp at the right times so they don't KNOW they've had a fever. I see people all the time who are suprised by a temp of 101 or more. Most temps fluctuate throughout the day so they are easy to miss too. Or, she could have had the pneumonia caught early enough that her body hadn't started fighting it. Or maybe it wasn't really pneumonia. Sure, some people have immune deficiencies that could lead to increased infections, but that isn't all that common in adults. I guess the non fever part doesn't really worry me. I don't have enough information on the actual infections to know. Some docs still treat congestion as if it is always infection, and that isn't always the case. Sometimes there are logical reasons not to have fever.
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posted
*quietly wishes this thread would just die*
it is NOT major, trust me, I;ve lived with two people who DO have major asthma, and I know mine isn't. I don't have to take medicine that often, and the times I do have trouble-it's usually in fall and spring, allergy time. And my life has NEVER been in danger from it. Not ONCE. As opposed to my sister and mother who actually DO have major asthma. Anne kate, I grew up surrounded by asthma information, my mother is more of an expert on it than most doctors. TRUST me, it's NOT major.
And no, I almost never get temperatures, maybe three times in my life. It's not pneumonia, it's almost completely gone. A bad cold, nothing more.
posted
Coughing up blood seems very serious, though, Anna.
I'm sorry if I embarrassed you, though. I DID ask your permission, and I do NOT want to lose you! But I will delete the thread if you ask me to. <<<<Anna>>>>>
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