I got caught in a thunderstorm last Monday and ended up soaked to the skin. My clothes were so wet they were transparent but since I’m an old guy and not a young woman, no one cared. I was gonna Bogart it but Wednesday night I was so sick Marcie forced me to go to a walk in clinic that is operated by our local hospital. They took X-rays of my chest, told me I had pneumonia and sent me home with a prescription for Factive. I had to have a CT of my chest the following day, after which I was told, yep, you got pneumonia; go home and enjoy it. I’ve been mostly in bed Thursday and today and I’m sick of it.
This getting old business isn’t what it’s cracked up to be.
I had pneumonia when I was young. It sucked. I coughed and coughed and I had a horrible fever. I really thought I was gonna die. Hope you feel better soon.
Hey, if it makes you feel any better, pneumonia isn’t just for "old "people! I had it 3 years ago at the ripe old age of 27. I won’t tell you how long it took me to feel like myself again.
Seriously, take your meds, drink lots of fluids, and get lots of rest. When you think you are better, stay in bed for about 3 more days. Pneumonia at any age is no joke and you need to take good care of yourself. Feel better soon!
I had pneumonia last month, it sucked muchly. I was really, really sick for about 8 days then attempted to go back to work but had to take it easy because I was still weak for at least another week. I think the high fever killed some brain cells too, because I have been really stupid and absent-minded since then … more so than usual.
Also, be sure to get lots of yogurt with active cultures for when the antibiotics wipe out all your normal intestinal flora.
I had pneumonia this summer. It was awful. Do NOT try to do anything–rest, rest, rest. I went back to work too soon, and I relapsed a bit. I never want to have it again. Neither do you. Did I mention rest?
I had pneumonia my senior year of high school. I was in bed for a week, and it’s probably the sickest I’ve ever been. My sleep schedule was thrown off to the point where I coughed all night and slept all day. It was years before I went a winter without getting bronchitis - but at least I didn’t get pneumonia again (knocks wood). Please, take care of yourself.
Louis, I hope your recovery goes well. Us old farts gotta stick together.
I hope you didn’t mean to imply that you caught pneumonia because you got caught in a thunderstorm.
I don’t know what the mechanism is/was. I was outside with my little dog when the storm broke; he had to go, what can you do? The dog and I were both soaked, following which I started having sniffles and a sore throat. Wednesday was my day off; by the end of the day, I was coughing a lot and I felt as if I had been beaten up with a pool cue. Marcie drug me off to the clinic I mentioned earlier and they made the diagnosis. Was getting soaked just a bonus?
I hope you feel better soon. I had pneumonia (or something damn close to it, anyway) when I was 17, following 42 hours of labor with no sleep that ended up an emergency C-section under general anaesthetic after which the evil bitch nurses dumped me flat on my back in a cold room next to an uncurtained window with one blanket in December and they wouldn’t show me where the controls to raise the bed were and yelled at me for trying to breathe through all the phlegm rather than coughing it up because I’d just been sawn in half and had a human being taken out of me and I was afraid if I continued coughing my intestines would fly out.
But I’m not bitter.
I prescribe lots of hot mint tea with honey, sleep, and Humphrey Bogart movies.
[norm] When I was younger that’s when I was in good shape. I was in my peek physical condition when I was, like, one. Man, you should have seen me back then. I even looked good for my age. People would come up to me and be like, “What are you? Zero?!” [/nm]
Sorry to hear you’re ill. Both my wife and I came down with pneumonia on the same day about five years ago. It was awful.
I was at work, and started to feel terrible, and couldn’t get warm, and had to lay down, except there wasn’t anywhere to lay down. People told me I looked terrible and should go home. I called my wife, and she was feeling the same thing, but drove halfway to get me in the rain and had to turn around and go home. I ended up taking a taxi ($30!) home, came in, fell into bed. When I woke up, it was two days later. We both went to urgent care and were diagnosed with walking pneumonia. I couldn’t go back to work for two weeks. It was the only time I’ve ever been off work sick. (I’ve wondered if I gave it to the cab driver…)
Take everyone’s advice. Get lots of rest. I hope you feel better soon.
I had it way back when I was in basic training and spent five weeks in Camp Pendleton hospital. My temp climbed up to 105 before they shot pennicillin in my butt and had me lie on the floor in the shower room for a half hour, breathing steam. That night I slept well for the first time in weeks and the next morning my temp was back to normal and I wanted FOOD for the first time in weeks. I had lost twenty pounds and looked like a refugee from a POW camp.
Now if I get a cold, I take care of it. At my advanced age (64) pneumonia is nothing to mess around with. Hope you feel better real quick.
I had pneumonia my senior year of college when I was 21. I had the flue over winter break (I had to take my last exam right when it started,) and about a month into winter classes, the flu came back for about a week and a half, and then that led right to pneumonia. I had that for almost another two weeks, but still went to classes cause I couldn’t afford to miss them. Not a smart thing to do.
Ugh, I hate that “walking pneumonia” moniker. When I got pneumonia my first (of 5!) time – from chemical inhalation at work – it was my first year out of college and I was living at home. Mom thought that “walking pneumonia” meant “you should walk around.”
She made me walk the dog. :mad: Who was a sweet, chubby spaniel whom I adored. But I had pneumonia. Doggie was mighty confused why I walked only as far as out of sight of home, then stopped and collapsed. She grew rather bored with exploring the very short arc her leash allowed her, and eventually curled up with me and went to sleep until I felt steady enough to wobble back home.
LouisB, sleep lots. And here’s hoping you’ve got someone willing to pamper you when you need it, and to leave you be when you’re feeling peevish. 'Cause that’s really for the best.
Also, if you can’t sleep because your back aches (from fluid-filled lungs pressing against your ribcage; it sucks), try propping yourself up in bed so you’re half-sitting. I found it relieves the discomfort enough for you to fall asleep for a bit.
I could be wrong, but I think it’s called that to differentiate it from the kind of pneumonia that completely immobilizes you, and requires you to live in the isolation ward at the hospital.
I’m sorry your mom had the totally wrong idea of what it meant.
You’re right, fishbicycle. “Walking pneumonia” just refers to the fact that, relative to the more typical form of pneumonia, the symptoms are milder so docs are more likely to see the patient walk into the office rather than end up hospitalized for it. It’s still definitely not a situation where you should be exerting yourself. :mad:
