Mycoplasmal pneumonia is a bacterial disease that shows signs of gradual as well as insidious onset of several days and continues till many weeks. The patient is likely to suffer from fever, malaise not to mention persistent as well as slow dry cough. Coughing is considered to be an integral part of this disease and the complete absence of cough makes the diagnosis of Mycoplasma pneumoniae pretty unlikely. The patient is also likely to suffer from headache, chills, scratchy sore throat and even from sore chest as well as from tracheal tenderness. In some rare cases the patient is likely to suffer from Pleuritic chest pain.
Most of the cases of this disease is caused due to M pneumoniae and resolves after making the victim suffer for a period of several weeks and a dry cough can last for as long as a month. Some of the patients suffering from this sickness can suffer from a protracted illness that can last for as long as 6 weeks. Other symptoms may include a nontoxic general appearance, the presence of Erythematous tympanic membranes and bullous myringitis in patients who are older than 2 years. This is considered to be an uncommon but unique sign nonetheless. The patient might also suffer from normal lung findings with early signs of infection and he or she might rhonchi, rales or wheeze after a few days.
The causative agent of this disease is M pneumoniae. This is a bacterium without a cell wall. The aforementioned bacterium belongs to the class Mollicutes which happens to be the smallest known free-living microorganisms. There are several causes of the Mycoplasmal pneumonia and some of them are as follows:-
• Since the organism can easily be excreted from the respiratory tract for a large number of weeks even after the acute infection, mere isolation of the entire organism may not indicate infection in its most acute form.
• The symptoms of this sickness are usually mild and all these symptoms appear over a total period of 1 to 3 weeks.
Common symptoms of the Mycoplasmal pneumonia include Headache, Sore throat, possibly high Fever, Chest pain, Excessive sweating, Chills, Cough and others. There are a few less frequent symptoms like skin lesions or rash, eye pains, muscle aches as well as joint stiffness, lump in neck, rapid breathing, pain in ear and others. There are a lot of signs and tests to determine if a person is actually suffering from Mycoplasmal pneumonia. A proper physical examination may show the enlargement in the lymph nodes as well as the inflammation of the eardrum.
Thankfully the Mycoplasma pneumoniae can be cured without complicating matters. The physicians usually suggest the dosage of antibiotics. The same may be prescribed for even more serious symptoms that are related to the disease mycoplasma pneumonia. There are a certain percentage of people who recover completely even without the aid of antibiotics however it must be kept in mind that the antibiotics may just speed up recovery. In case of the untreated adults, symptoms of both cough as well as weakness can well persist for up to a whole month.
Tags: inflammation, mycoplasma, mycoplasmal, mycoplasmal pneumonia, sore throat, throat