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How Do I Know If I Have It?

Pneumonia's forms range from a mild condition treatable at home to a potentially fatal infection requiring hospitalization. You must see your doctor to guarantee appropriate treatment and a successful recovery. Your doctor will first listen to your chest for crackling noises and tap your chest to check for dull thuds indicating fluid-filled lungs.

If necessary, an X-ray can confirm that you have pneumonia, showing where air sacs in the lungs are filled with fluid and debris. Blood and mucus samples, sometimes obtained by inserting a tube down the trachea into the lungs, may be tested for bacteria or viruses, but the results are not always conclusive.

What Are the Treatments?

Early treatment is most effective. See a doctor right away if you think you might have pneumonia. Exactly which drug is used to treat pneumonia depends on the type of germ and on your doctor's treatment strategy.

Antibiotics can cure bacterial pneumonia and make recovery from mycoplasma pneumonia much quicker. Sometimes antiviral drugs can be used to treat certain types of viral pneumonia, but there is not yet any treatment that works against all causes.

In most cases, treatment must be continued until most symptoms are gone. This is to be sure that all the germs are killed. Relapse of pneumonia is nearly always much more severe than the original disease.

Supportive treatment often helps. This can include medicines that ease chest pain and relieve violent coughing. Sometimes oxygen is needed. In all cases, a proper diet speeds recovery.

Young, healthy people can feel perfectly fine only a week after recovery. A middle-aged person may not regain full strength for several weeks. In all cases, plenty of rest is needed. People generally can return to work as soon as they feel up to it, but they will need to take it easy at first.

How Can I Prevent It?

The best way to prevent pneumonia is to get a flu shot, because influenza can lead to pneumonia.

There's also a vaccine against one kind of bacterial pneumonia, pneumococcal pneumonia. You should get this vaccine if you suffer from a chronic illness such as diabetes or heart disease; if you are recovering from a severe illness; if you live in a nursing home; or if you're 65 or older.

As with all diseases, a healthy lifestyle — proper diet, regular exercise, good hygiene — decrease the chance of illness and speed recovery from infection.