Question about walking Pneumonia???? Help!

Hi Kinney,
I get walking pneumonia almost every year. I do not have cidp or gbs and it is hard for me to get the sputum up. I have a nebulizer machine and I do albuterol treatments a few times a day, it helps me, but as we know, everyone is different! Good luck!
Dawn Kevies mom

Walking pneumonia is usually the name for an infection called mycoplasma in the lungs. It is characterized by coughing for often three weeks, but without an area of dense “consolidation” or inflammation seen on chest x-ray. Instead the infection is spread out in the lungs or airways. Usually people are treated with erythromycin (3-4 times a day for 10 days) or azithromycin (once a day for 5 days most often).

It can help to cough up the sputum by staying well-hydrated *drinking lots of water”. Guaifensin (an expectorant–that helps you to cough up mucus) can help. This is the active ingrediant in Robitussin or the newly popular Mucinex. It is often better not to take a cough suppressant such as dextromethorphan (DM) or codeine because you want to cough out the mucus so avoid Robitussin DM unless you cannot sleep at night, then take only at night. Coughing is a good thing because it clears the airways and helps prevent a “secondary” infection/pneumonia. The problem with us GBS/CIDPers is that we may not be able to cough effectively and will tire out more with the muscular effort of coughing. Try to make coughing effective to move mucus out and save energy–like breathing a couple of times a day in a misty hot room from shower steam. My sister had cystic fibrosis, an illness people are born with where mucus is really thick and hard to clear. She used to lie down partly upside down to help drainage and my parents used to pat her back to help. You can do the same by lying down semi-upside down by hanging your head off the bed or in an easy chair (if you can get up okay afterward). The real purpose of this is to let gravity help to move the mucus out of the lungs and it also helps to just turn from one side to the other without the upside down part. Your wife might help by patting your back or trunk with a cupped hand. this should not hurt or cause bruising, it just helps jar the mucus loose to help it to come out. This is done in the hospital with pneumonia (chest percussion and posural drainage). The best things are the antibiotics, fluids, and expectorant. Watch out for feeling worse–more trouble to breath, higher fever, feeling more ill with trouble eating and feeling wiped out. If these happen, you might need to see the doctor again.
I found that I cough much better since getting GBS/CIDP when I am sitting up in a chair and had to sleep in an easy chair when I had a cold because it was harder to breath lying down flat at night because of wimpy muscles.
WithHope for cure of these diseases.

I had terrible coughing while on the vent and trache. I did end up with pneumonia but they caught it quickly with the first spike in my body temp.

I got the breathing treatments and their effect give me a few hours of rest. A also had trouble with the whimpy muscles and could not move so every two hours them come in and turned me to avoid bed sores, but also to move the fluid around. I also kept my room fairly cool, the heat would dry my throat and that would irritate and start the coughing. I was told that there was a vest I could wear beside the air mattress that consistantly moved. The vest would pound on the chest. I was glad that I did not have that done because it did not stop when the coughing does and it is hard to get rest. The GBS left my body also very sensitive to touch and I think it would have been too painful to wear that vest.. But it was an option.. Also, I was not able to sip on water so they had an IV in to keep me hydrated too. Chap stick was my friend. Take care and ask questions!

WithHope did a great job replying to your problem. I would just add that since I had Legionaire’s Disease (basically pneumonia) I was prone to pneumonia. ONe night when I was doubled over trying to breathe, I took some MSM which you can get anywhere – even WalMart. It is a sufur derivative. I have given it to friends who needed inhalers for their asthma and it got rid of their problems in ten minutes. Totally gone. It did the same for my pneumonia and bronchitis. The first time I took it, I had hoped for possibly a ten percent improvement in breathing. My breathing difficulties were gone in 5-10 minutes. It stunned me.