Question:
I think I goofed trying to post this message
before... so I will try again. I had pneumonia in
the top of my right lung almost 5 years ago. I
keep thinking that the chronic asthma I now get
is some sort of leftover bacteria. When I'm
treated with an antibiotic for my Now more
frequent bouts of bronchitis, I find that the
"squeaky door" sound completely goes away. But
then it comes back after a few weeks and I have
to go back to using the atrovent and flovent
inhalers to make the "squeaky" sound leave. Did
the pneumonia cause me to have chronic asthma?
Why does the antibiotic help the asthma sound go
away? Also, why am I am hoarse for most of the
next day after taking Trazodone the night
before? My dr. doesn't have any answers, just
that I have asthma.
Answer:
I agree. If antibiotics help, then then it comes back when you stop
them, sounds like something else is cooking away in there. Ok, from what my Dr told me this post is backwards. He said that
chronic bronchitis and pneumonia is from asthma, and once you get
pneumonia you are at risk to get it again and it can worsen your
asthma. So that would mean that you have always had asthma but it was
very mild and now due to the pneumonia, your asthma has gotten worse.
This is what I understood from my Dr. I would try another doctor. It sounds as if you have a persistent
lung infection. Please check PubMed, the U.S. Government's repository of abstracts and
citations, and check out a bacterium called Chlamydia pneumoniae. In
particular, check the abstracts dealing with Chlamydia and: cortisone,
cortisol, asthma, pneumonia, macrolides, and chronic obstructive pulmonary
disease. You may also find it interesting to check Alzheimer's disease,
cardiovascular disease, and multiple sclerosis. The URL for the PubMed
advanced search engine is:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/PubMed/medline.html
Over a period of years I was diagnosed with emphysema, COPD, and
asthma, and I developed pneumonia a week after starting Azmacort. It took me
several months to get my doctors to check me for C. pneumoniae. When I
tested positive I was given a thirty day course of clarithromycin and I have
had a tremendous turn around in my health.
Only the newer macrolides work reliably. Doxycycline and
erythromycin probably worked at one time but they are no longer dependable.
Some authorities recommend four to six month courses of antibiotics, and
thirty days is the bare minimum. Anything less and you are just developing a
more resistant strain of the bug.
Any of you willing to spend a couple of hours on PubMed may revise
your entire outlook on chronic disease. This one bug kills about half the
people on the planet, but it does it so slowly, and it was until recently so
hard to detect, that it is almost unknown.
It can. Depends on the seriousness of the pneumonia. Best advice my doctor
ever gave me: Get to the office ASAP after getting an URI. Then, to prevent
pneumonia, he gives me a shot of antibiotic and puts me on oral antibiotics
for a week. Knocks out any chance of getting pneumonia. The last time I
didn't follow this advice, I ended up in the ER with pneumonia in both lungs.
