Is it possible to have walking pneumonia with no respitory symptoms other than a!
Question:
Is it possible to have walking pneumonia with no respitory symptoms other than a feeling in the chest?
My grandmother said she had a weird feeling in her chest. She is going to be 95 this December but is in great health for someone of her age. Doctor wouldn't see her until Monday so my mother took her to emergency room (where she waited 6 hours to be seen). They did all kinds of tests. One thing they said was that she has the blood pressure of a 30-year old woman. They GUESSED that it was walking pnemonia but don't docs take cultures to test for that to make sure. Isn't pneumonia bacterial? They gave her an antibiotic without knowing for sure what it was because they couldn't find anything wrong with her. She did not react to well to the antibiotic so she stopped taking it and now she feels ok. What is up with all of this? I'm thinking maybe she had a panic attack?
Anyway the main question here is "is it possible to have any kind of pnemonia with no resp. symptoms at all - no cough no phlem - nothing.
Thanks!!!
Answers:
Pneumonia can be viral or bacterial. Usually, if she got a chest x-ray to look for pneumonia, only certain types of pneumonia show up which are the more common causes of pneumonia, which are bacterial.
Since she did not respond to the antibiotic, the problem could have very well been viral pneumonia. Viruses are not cured with antibiotics. Viral infections clear on their own, usually from 3-10 days from initial onset. And yes, viral pneumonias do not present similarly as bacterial pneumonias. It is quite possible to not have "typical" respiratory complaints. Plus, with a 95 year old, they are more susceptible to the "atypical" infections.
Panic attacks would have probably been in her past medical history. I doubt at 95 she is all the sudden having panic attacks.