As temperatures continue to fall, respiratory diseases have entered a period of high incidence. Flu, mycoplasma pneumonia, respiratory diseases and other words are popular searches.

What are the typical symptoms of respiratory infection? How to recognize and respond to severe and critical illness caused by respiratory infections?

There was no increase in the types of respiratory infectious diseases

People are talking about respiratory diseases these days. At least three concepts should be clear before discussion: respiratory infectious diseases, respiratory infectious diseases, and respiratory diseases.

Respiratory infectious diseases refer to notifiable infectious diseases transmitted through the respiratory tract, such as influenza, COVID-19, tuberculosis, etc. Respiratory tract infectious diseases include respiratory tract infectious diseases, which refer to respiratory tract diseases caused by foreign pathogens invading the respiratory system.

In terms of disease types, there are no new types of respiratory infectious diseases, but the number of cases may be higher than in some years.

From the point of view of infection invasion, respiratory tract infection is divided into upper respiratory tract infection and lower respiratory tract infection.

The symptoms of upper respiratory tract infection mainly include runny nose, sneezing, sore throat, etc., but also cough, phlegm, hoarseness and other symptoms; The main symptoms of lower respiratory tract infection are cough, phlegm, breath-holding, wheezing, etc. Both upper and lower respiratory infections can present with systemic symptoms such as fever, muscle aches and headaches.

Severe or critical illness should be treated at the first time

What symptoms may indicate a risk of severe or critical illness after contracting a respiratory illness?

One is symptoms of lower respiratory tract infection. Such as pneumonia, bronchiolitis, severe bronchitis, etc., these symptoms can affect lung ventilation, lead to hypoxia, and even lead to respiratory failure. Most cases of upper respiratory infections are mild, but symptoms such as choking and hoarseness can occur.

Second, the infected persons belong to the special population with a high risk of severe illness. Usually, infants, the elderly, people with basic diseases are relatively poor immunity, to closely observe the status of such people after infection, if there is malaise, cyanosis (skin mucosa is blue), breathing difficulties, etc., may indicate the risk of severe and critical illness.

Third, the course of the disease progresses rapidly. Respiratory infections caused by specific pathogens may be more likely to cause serious illness. Such as legionella pneumonia, plague, etc., the course of the disease can progress very fast.

If you are seriously or critically ill, go to the hospital as soon as possible.

First of all, routine examinations should be performed, including physical examination (respiratory rate, heart rate, blood pressure, mental state, pulmonary rales, etc.), white blood cells, finger pulse oxygen saturation, chest film or CT.

Not all people need to do CT, infants, the elderly, people with underlying diseases, the disease progresses more quickly, may want to do CT, in addition, suspected of lower respiratory tract infection or pneumonia can also take chest X-ray or chest CT.

On the basis of the examination results, targeted treatment was carried out. Treatment of severe and critical illness consists of two main steps: the first step is effective antimicrobial therapy with antiviral or antibacterial drugs. The second step is to monitor the patient. If the symptoms worsen, or even progress to respiratory failure, you will be admitted to the intensive care unit, and in severe cases you may need to use a ventilator or even an ECMO (extracorporeal membrane oxygenation device).

It usually does not cause permanent lung damage

Some people ask, can pneumonia cause permanent lung damage?

This needs to be based on the basic condition of the patient, the severity of the disease, the type of pathogen, whether the treatment is timely, the level of tissue repair ability, etc., can not be generalized.

The speed of lung recovery is related to three factors: first, the severity of lung disease, and the speed of recovery is slow; Second, the basic state of the patient, the elderly and people with basic diseases recover more slowly; The third is the type of pathogen infection, bacterial infection caused by pneumonia can generally recover in about 1 month, and some viruses caused by pneumonia may take 2 months or even longer to fully return to normal.

In fact, for the vast majority of people with viral pneumonia, lung damage can be recovered. However, it is not ruled out that a small number of viral pneumonia secondary bacterial infections, resulting in lung damage, which may affect lung function.