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By Louis Neipris, M.D., HealthAtoZ writer
For days your teenager has complained of a sore throat. At night you hear a dry hacking cough that doesn't stop coming from your child's bedroom. Is this a bad cold or pneumonia?
It could be atypical pneumonia, commonly called "walking pneumonia."
As the name implies, this pneumonia doesn't require being in the hospital. Children and young adults can often go to school or work. However, before going about normal life, they should see a doctor, get diagnosed and treated, and prevent spreading it to others.
Mild, atypical pneumonia is often due to Mycoplasma pneumoniae, a bacteria-like organism that invades the nose, mouth and the lower airways and lungs. Pneumonia is simply an inflammation of the lungs. Usually only people with an underlying illness, or the elderly or newborns get pneumonia. However, even the airways of healthy individuals have a hard time clearing out the organism, which disables the tiny hairs, or cilia, lining the respiratory tract. This results in a dry hacking cough.
Anyone can get walking pneumonia, but it mostly happens in children from 5 to 15 years of age and in young adults. Outbreaks tend to start in institutional settings like schools and army barracks, where coughing spreads the infection. However, walking pneumonia is often contagious within a family. Someone with walking pneumonia can spread infection for as long as 20 days, and someone sleeping in the same room is at higher risk.
Symptoms are often mistaken for a mild head cold or upper respiratory tract infection. Symptoms include fever, weakness, runny nose and sore throat. The cold symptoms - nasal stuffiness and runny nose - give way to a moist, non-productive cough once the infection moves lower down in the airways. The cough lasts for a few weeks and, unless treated, progresses to a dry, hacking cough that's often worse at night, which tends to spread the infection to someone sharing a bedroom.
Walking pneumonia isn't so serious you have to go to a hospital, but it's still a miserable illness. Fortunately, if treated with antibiotics it will clear up within days instead of weeks.
As with any respiratory infection, covering the face and mouth when sneezing or coughing helps to prevent the spread of pneumonia. Wearing a face mask, frequent hand washing and the use of disposable paper towels are other good hygiene methods.
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External Sources
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Microbiology and Immunology Online
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MedlinePlus Encyclopedia, National Institutes of Health
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Mycoplasma Infection, New York State Department of Public Health
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This article was reviewed and updated June 2007.
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