Since it came up in this thread, I thought it might be interesting to continue here in more detail. I’m not an expert on whooping cough by any means, but I can, unfortunately, describe first-hand what it’s like.
Anyone else who has had it (or has it now) feel free to chime in!
Does it actually sound like whooping? (.wav file or GTFO!)
Is it a dry cough, or an … um … expectorant one?
Were you vaccinated as a child? Does that wear off by adulthood?
My sympathies to you for having to go through this.
Mine doesn’t because I can usually stifle the whoop, but my wife, who has it too, makes the sound. The whoop comes from the big intake of air you take after a long string of coughs. You cough until there’s no more air in your lungs, then take a huge breath. The constriction of your throat makes a whoop sound when you suck in the air. And the whoop usually irritates your throat (which is why I struggle to stifle it), setting off another string of coughs that leave you breathless. Wash, rinse, repeat.
Dry, dry, dry. That’s one of the maddening things about it. With a normal cough you feel like if you cough hard enough you can “get under it” and cough something up. But these coughs don’t do anything. All they do is trigger more coughing.
Yes and yes. Everyone should get a booster. My kids, who have had all their vaccines, have been completely unaffected while my wife and I have been coughing our lungs out.
Thanks. The good thing is, when I’m NOT coughing I feel perfectly fine. The bad thing is, it can linger for MONTHS … .
Are you medicated for it? Or do you just have to ride it out?
I took a round of antibiotics back in mid-July when it was clear I had something serious, but before I knew what it really was. That stopped it from getting worse (and, from what I’ve read, ended my infectious phase). But it didn’t cure it. There is no cure or even any effective treatment to suppress the cough. You just have to wait it out as the cough slowly gets milder and milder over the weeks.
I cough less frequently now, but I still occasionally have a nasty bout. Last night, after hardly coughing all day, I had a sudden fit where I coughed so hard I almost threw up.
Edited, nvm.
LOL … damn it. Posting to this thread is making me want to cough. Just thinking about the symptoms is making my throat itch.
Apparently the first rule of whooping cough is “Don’t talk about whooping cough.” :smack:
(Raises hand enthusiastically) I know! I know!
Whooping cough (Pertussis) vaccine given in childhood is only good for about 5 years. For a long time the medical community didn’t think it was a problem in adults, so after about age 10, no one got immunized or followed up.
Now we know that it can be a serious illness in adults as well as the threat of it being passed on the unimmunized infants, unknowingly.
There is a new adult immunization available. It’s usually encouraged in areas where there’s an outbreak.
Antibiotics don’t effect the symptoms, they only make you less contagious. The cough is caused from the endotoxins released as the bacteria die.
Symptoms can go on for as long as a year. In Mexico it’s called the 100 days cough. (sorry King)
Five years ago my husband nearly died from it. He had the rare symptom of tussive syncope. (this is the symptom that babies get, that makes it so dangerous for them) When he coughed, his heart would slow to about 20 beats a minutes, he’d pass out and fall down. He banged his head on the fireplace, the kitchen cabinet, and the driveway. He was hospitalized for 3 days, had two MRIs and was off work for almost 2 months.
He still “grays out” sometimes when he coughs.
One of my nieces had whooping cough as a baby, starting at a week old when she was too young to be vaccinated. It’s rare for a baby that young to get the disease (at least these days) and the symptoms aren’t the same, probably because her lungs were just too small to make the whooping sound or even effectively cough.
She simply spent the first few weeks of her life crying and crying and crying - she only stopped when she passed out now and then - not feeding well, red in the face, not breathing properly (but then babies sometimes don’t when they’re having a proper crying fit, like with some colic), and sleeping hardly at all … her mother was at breaking point.
Due to the unusual symptoms, it took till she was 8 weeks old for there to finally be a diagnosis. She was over a year old before she was properly well again, though she did improve a lot after the diagnosis (I don’t know what the doctors did exactly, but apparently they did something).
I was 9 months pregnant when I babysat her, so I did mention at my last check-up that I’d been exposed to whooping cough, as well as malaria, chickenpox and a hornet sting with an allergic reaction, all in one week. The doctor wasn’t worried at all; I found it amusing that my unborn child was already being exposed to so many hazards and neatly side-stepping them.
Nasty. I didn’t pass out, but I did cough sometimes until I got tunnel vision. Which was kind of exciting when it happened while I was driving.
I never feared for my life, but when it was really bad a few weeks ago I could totally see how someone could die from it. When you’re in the middle of a fit, every time you try to inhale it triggers another round of violent coughing.
I don’t expect you to know the answer, Hamster King, but I’ll toss it out in case anyone who knows sees the question. I had it as a teenager. Am I immune now, or does that wear off like the vaccine does?
And my sympathies to you. I missed six weeks of school, and had another six weeks of a reduced schedule. I did have the classic whoop, but it took a while to diagnose it anyway, because “I’d been vaccinated - it can’t be that”.
I think I may have had this at age 16. I was at a small summer camp where 2 kids tested positive for it (nasal swab). I was never tested but I was definitely exposed to them for prolonged periods and had eerily similar symptoms, so I’ve always assumed that’s what it was. I had a booster shot at my 12-year checkup, but so did the 15-year-old who first tested positive after an ER visit, so maybe the shots aren’t wholly effective. It started out like a mild cold, and then came the cough. Oh, the cough! You cough and cough and cough. And cough some more. And when that’s done, you cough some more. It starts to feel like a kick in the ribs every time. None of us had the whoop, but I and the first guy who got it were both coughing so badly that we’d gag and throw up multiple times.
And it just lasts forever. I caught it in mid-July. The fits very gradually decreased in frequency, but it wasn’t until almost November that it was totally gone and any slight irritation wouldn’t set off another coughing bout. Again, I was never tested, so maybe it was just the world’s worst case of post-nasal drip, but based on my proximity to kids with whooping cough and the identical symptoms, I’m guessing it was whooping cough. Since when does post-nasal drip last 4 months?
No you are not immune. I had it as an infant (per my grandmother), I was immunized at age 5, when I started school, I caught it from a patient when I was 38, confirmed by nasal swab. Then I got it from my husband at age 59, again confirmed by swab. I don’t know how long the adult immunization lasts.
If I were you I’d sue the architect!
Since the house was built in 1942, I doubt he’s still around.
How would you be able to tell (as the patient) if you had whooping cough or if you were just having an asthma attack? (Because the albuterol wouldn’t work or help? Asthma cough won’t go away either, left untreated. Of course, you’d probably die from an untreated asthma attack, eventually, anyway.)
So because most adults do not get boosters, nor know about it, we can’t really blame the anti-vacc crowd for your particular case? (Yeah, I was just looking for a straw man to poke. Nothing to see here…)
The cough is different than an asthma cough. Hubby has asthma. Albuteral doesn’t help at all.
Astthma is a problem with over inflation. The patient can’t empty his lungs, so has no room for deep breaths. Whooping cough narrows the upper airways, making it difficult getting air in. The chest x-rays for the two diseases look different.
I grayed out a few times, and nearly passed out once while driving. Not a pleasant experience to “come to” in the middle of a road not exactly sure where I was. I recovered in a few seconds but those were long seconds.
I also broke a rib from one particularly bad coughing jag.
One time hubby crashed on the kitchen floor, fell flat on his back I rushed in and said, “You passed out again.”
He said, “No I didn’t.”
Me, “Then why are you lying on the kitchen floor?”
He looked around very puzzled, “Wha…?”
It’s really not fun.
My wife once injured a rib from a (non-whooping) coughing fit.
From a husband’s point of view, this can be especially nerve-wracking, because the nice people at the ER made sure to have a quiet, private conversation with her at one point, to ask her whether I was the real cause of her injury. Fortunately for me, they believed her.