Does anyone here know about how long it takes cardiopulmonary function to return to normal after having pneumonia?
Printable View
Does anyone here know about how long it takes cardiopulmonary function to return to normal after having pneumonia?
It depends on how bad the pneumonia is. I had a pretty bad case requiring over a weeks stay in the hospital and I wasn't in a condition to do anything active for about a month. Its probably different for each person and for each case.
edit: Good luck to you or whoever has it though. It can be a pretty rough situation. I hope everything works out alright.
i had it about a year ago. couldn't sleep for 3 days straight and finally went to the doctor. didn't have to be hospitalized, but i was out of work for over a week. I still have a wheeze and some pain in my lungs from time to time.
I just had it in November & December. Out of work for 8 days. Came back to work for 3 days and it was back in full force. I was out of work for another week. I went back to work and it took a month to feel normal again. I was just fatigued for a full month. Lost 25 pounds during all this, which I gained all back!
I had it and was out of commission from training for a few weeks. Once you get phnemonia you really have to be careful on how hard to push your cardio. Lift weights in the begining to get you back at it. Your body needs at least 3 weeks rest. Get back into it real slow, if not your going to be out for even longer. I competed 6 weeks after I had it and I felt pretty good. The only plus was that I dropped 25 pounds :)
I haven't but I once banged a chick with syphilis. I returned to training the next night
i had it REALLY bad after I went to Africa and caught Malaria. sounds like a joke- but im serious.
It took me a good month to get back to where I didn't feel the burn and hear me wheezing anymore.
Breathing exercises are KEY man...
Every 30 mins- breathe in ALLLLL the way and hold it, exhale alllll the way and do this about 5-10x.
It's amazing how BAD we all are at breathing. sounds odd...but its true.
Hahhaha Brent that was fucken awesome!Quote:
Originally Posted by brent_littell
Pneumonia is a complex disease that can have several causes. How well you bounce back from it depends on your overall health beforehand, the causative agent of the pneumonia, the number of lobes involved, and what you'd call the overall severity of that particular pneumonia.
Your health has to do with your immune system. There is no medication on Earth that will cure a pneumonia. What antibiotics, antivirals, and other medications do is keep the causative agent at bay so that your immune system can go in and do the actual killing. If you have a weakened immune system, your ability to mount an effective response will be limited. This could be anything from having another illness (acute or chronic -- called a "co-morbidity") to being on immunosuppresive medication. Stress increases cortisol levels which suppresses immunity as does frequent, intense exercise (yup, jitz.) I'm not telling you anything you don't really already know here. If you're not healthy to start with, it's gonna take longer.
The causative agent is usually a common or uncommon bacterium or a common or uncommon virus. Common bacteria include S. pneumonae, H. influenzae, Staph (yup, that staph), and more uncommonly (out of hospital) P. aeruginosa, E. coli, and Klebsiella. All of these are treatable to one degree or another by antibiotics. Again, all those do is keep the bacteria that are already there from reproducing very well. That gives your immune system the chance to overwhelm them and kill them off. This is why you HAVE to take ALL of your prescribed abx even if you feel better in a day or two. If you don't, the bacteria that live are far more likely to produce offspring that are now resistant to that abx. This is how in just a few generations we end with resistant organisms. There are now three strains in particular that have no treatment at all. There is a resistant Klebsiella strain out there right now that is just brutal. There is literally nothing to treat it with. We haven't seen pneumonias like this since before penicillin. Doctors are seeing for the first time in generations a pneumonia that progresses from start to finish completely unchecked. TAKE YOUR ANTIBIOTICS. But pay attention to the next part too...
Viruses also cause pneumonia. They are much more common than bacterial pneumonias and are not treated with antibiotics. Antibiotics interfere with a bacterium's ability to reproduce. A virus is not a bacterium and doesn't care. It reproduces using your own cells. Antibiotics have zero effect on viral pneumonias. There are, however, some wonderful antivirals out there that -- if used in the very early stages -- can seriously put a halt to what would otherwise be a bad pneumonia. The flu is one of the most common viral pneumonias -- it kills about 33,000 people every year depending on the strain and vaccine availability. RSV is extremely common -- we all have had it at one time or another in the U.S. It can cause a severe pneumonia in children but is usually pretty mild in adults. Viral pneumonias can be just as severe as bacterial pneumonias and both can be fatal.
The number of lobes involved is key to how long it will take to bounce back. A small strep pneumonia confined to the right upper lobe is going to be much easier to clear than the same bug throughout the whole right lung. Upper lobes are easier to drain than the lower and right middle lobes and the right side is easier to drain than the left. A left lower lobe or lingular pneumonia is a real bitch to get rid of while a right upper lobe is the easiest.
If that pneumonia was instigated by a few broken ribs that matters a LOT. Ultimately you have to be able to cough to clear the debris leftover from the battle or that pneumonia isn't going anywhere. The longer a pneumonia is left to sit, the more it gets "walled off." The immune system literally creates a slimy wall around the bacteria. This traps the bacteria in with the killer cells but it also prevents antibiotics from getting to the bacteria. When you cough, you disrupt some of this which clears crap out of the way to let new white blood cells in to keep killin'. If you can't cough, you end up with a stalemate. When the ribs overlying a pneumonia are broken, it can lead to lifetime colonization in the affected lobe or segment. That means it will go away for the most part, but if you break those ribs again, have surgery, etc, the pneumonia will flare up again in the same spot. It can literally stay with you for life.
Each bug has a general degree of severity to it; both how hard/easy it is to kill and how hard/easy it is to spread. The problem is that within each species there can be a wide variety of strains that vary considerably in their pathogenicity and virulence. Some community strains of strep pneumonia are still easily treated with azithromycin and go away in a week to ten days or so. Some hospital-acquired strains of strep are so resistant, virulent, and pathogenic that they can kill you in a couple of days. Same bug, very different prognosis.
That's the long answer. The short answer is: It depends. When were you diagnosed? With what, specifically (bug, lobes, strain, etc)? Were you given antibiotics? Did they take a sputum sample before or after giving antibiotics? Have you broken your ribs recently or in the past in the same area as the pneumonia? Ever have chest wall surgery of any kind? Do you have any other primary lung problems or other chronic or acute diseases/disorders/problems? Anybody in the family/residence also sick?
That's not exhaustive, but I bet I can narrow it down to when you'll be better to within a day or two with that info. I guess that depends on how badly you want a real answer and how precise you really want that answer to be. ;) <-- Respiratory geek.
About 2 weeks ago I was diagnosed with influenza and acute bronchitis brought on by the influenza. I was prescribed an antiviral for the flu and given an albuteral inhaler and some some hydrocodone cough syrup for the bronchitis. About a week later I was still pretty congested and having some pain in my back and side, from a bit of pleurisy, so I returned to the Dr. and found out I now had pneumonia. Flash forward 9 days later and I'm feeling 10x better but my cardio is super weak, I'm getting winded much easier just from normal everyday activities. I haven't jumped back on the mat yet and skipped NAGA in OK, but was thinking of trying after the weekend.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jason Hyatt
I last broke ribs 2 years ago, I've never had surgery on my chest wall, and I do have asthma but it has gone untreated since I was a younger teenager (13-14 ish), and really have had no issues with it in the past 15 years. Some people say you can out grow asthma but from my understanding it's chronic.
You are correct in that asthma is a chronic condition, but it's an inflammatory condition. Some folks rarely get attacks while others have constant inflammation and bronchoconstriction.
Very, very common pneumonia presentation; Flu progressing to bronchitis to pneumonia. It usually takes 10 days or more just to get over the flu as it is; add in pneumonia and you can usually add another two weeks to that. Asthma can make clearing the mucus and debris more difficult. The mucus in asthma tends to be much stickier and harder to cough loose. Since you seem to rarely have problems with the asthma it shouldn't prolong your recover much as long as you stay with the albuterol. Albuterol relaxes the smooth muscles in the airway which means it takes less effort to breathe. Better for your cardio. :)
In my experience it takes about twice as long as you've been out to get your cardio back to where it was assuming you go back to your regular training schedule (as opposed to making a specific effort/plan to ramp up your cardio).
You *might* have a colonization problem left over from the ribs but I'm skeptical. Flu causes pneumonia on its own so unless you had pneumonia after the broken ribs in the same place that it is now it's probably new rather than a flare of a old colonization.
Putting all of that together, I'd say you've got another week before the pneumonia is cleared, then another six-eight weeks back in training to be back to where you were depending on how much focus you put into aerobic conditioning specifically. If you have a heart rate monitor that will make targeting your training more efficient and you could probably shave two weeks off of that. I've become a devoted convert to the Tabata training protocol. You might want to take a look at that if conditioning is your biggest concern.
You're past the contagious stage so if you feel up to the exercise, by all means hit the gym. Know that you're gonna be weak, but you can set your own pace. When you're on the mend from pneumonia exercise can really help. You can't help but take lots of good, strong deep breaths and that gets the natural lung-clearance process moving strong (called the mucocilliary escalator. No really.). Hope you get to feeling 100% soon brother! :D
Thanks bro, I really appreciate the info. I was worried that getting back of the swing of things to early would hender my recovery. Since that's not the case, I'll strap on the monitor and start doing a bit of jogging and some sprints today. I've got NAGA in St. Louis in a month and I'm hoping to be back to normal by then.Quote:
Originally Posted by Jason Hyatt
I had pneumonia in November and the doctor said it would take a couple of months before I felt full strength. I started training after about two weeks but didn't spar for the first couple of weeks back. When I started to roll, I avoided the beasts and only sparred with guys that my weight class or smaller and ideally with a lower level of experience - that way I was less likely to be in a position where I might try to force my body to do something it couldn't. I did that for a week, then just went full force. I got my ass handed to more often than I tend do but my strength slowly built back up. I'd say the doctor was about right with his two months estimate.
I got pneumonia while in basic training in the Army. They were having us get up at 5:00 A.M. in the morningQuote:
Originally Posted by Andrew Maxwell
and running in 20 degree weather with only t-shirts. We had long sleeve shirts we could have worn but no they
had us wear just our t-shirts. First I got measles and then I got pneumonia on the way to the hospital riding
in the back of a open air pick-up at night. I spent two weeks in the hospital. Was so weak I could barley get
out of the hospital bed. Finally they came and told me if I didn't go back to basic training I would have to repeat
it again. So still sick and very weak I went back while they were out in the field. Soon as I got back they put
me on guard duty. It was very cold and I was very weak. But I had to gut it out cause I didn't want to repeat
basic training. Couple days later we went on a 20 mile hike with a rifle and back pact on. Don't know how I
survived.