Health Topics A-Z

What Are the Symptoms of Pleurisy?

• Severe, fleeting, sharp, pain in your chest, often on one side only, when breathing deeply, coughing, moving, sneezing or even talking.
• Severe chest pain that goes away when you hold your breath.
• When pleurisy occurs in certain locations of the lungs, the pain can be felt in other parts of the body such as the neck, shoulder or abdomen.
• Rapid, shallow breathing in response to the pain.

* Call your doctor if you have even a slight fever with these other symptoms. Fever could be a sign of a lung infection.

What Are the Symptoms of Pleural Effusion?

• Shortness of breath.
• A dry cough.

Call Your Doctor If:

• You are experiencing pleurisy symptoms, particularly if you have not been diagnosed for an underlying disease that could be causing this lung condition; pleurisy and pleural effusion can be symptoms of such serious diseases as pneumonia and lung cancer.
• You experience symptoms accompanied by fever, no matter how slight. You may have a type of infection that requires treatment with antibiotics.