walking pneumonia

CWatts

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As if they needed any more misery, I'm going to give a character walking pneumonia. This is a reasonably healthy 21-year-old woman and I want it to be troublesome at this point in the story but not incapacitating. Setting is 1870s New York City in January so cold weather, corsets, crowds and tons of coal smoke and other noxious pollutants are an issue. Pretty much I want her to fear she's getting tuberculosis or something without actually killing her, but where a change in climate/better air may be advisable.
 

waylander

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I had walking pneumonia earlier this year. Happy to tell you about it. PM me.
 

CrastersBabies

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I had it once as a child and once as an adult. As a child, I wasn't even aware that I had more than a common cold, but the doctor listening to my lungs and one X-ray later, and it was confirmed. I took antibiotics. I don't think you need antibiotics all the time as mild cases can clear up on their own.

As an adult, I had it and it knocked me out for a good 2 weeks. The cough (both times) had phlegm but not large amounts. (I had far more phlegm with bronchitis.)

As for your story, I think it would work, but I imagine if she's in a corset all the time, it would make it very hard to have a productive cough and the walking pneumonia might get worse? I don't know.

As an adult, I remember coughing a lot. So much that I couldn't sleep. I eventually had to get a codeine to help with that. It's kind of a catch 22. When you get run down, you're far more vulnerable for pneumonia in general. And you need rest. Lots of rest. Yet the cough often makes it so you can't get rest. My back hurt (lungs). I actually pulled a muscle from coughing. And my stomach muscles were mucho sore.

I never coughed up blood, though.

I guess one thing I would look at is how doctors of the time might have been able to differentiate between tuberculosis and walking pneumonia? If this character had access to a doctor . . .

Both times I had walking pneumonia, the doctors seemed to know just by listening through a stethoscope that I probably had pneumonia. The X-rays just served as confirmation.
 

CWatts

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As for your story, I think it would work, but I imagine if she's in a corset all the time, it would make it very hard to have a productive cough and the walking pneumonia might get worse? I don't know.

As an adult, I remember coughing a lot. So much that I couldn't sleep. I eventually had to get a codeine to help with that. It's kind of a catch 22. When you get run down, you're far more vulnerable for pneumonia in general. And you need rest. Lots of rest. Yet the cough often makes it so you can't get rest. My back hurt (lungs). I actually pulled a muscle from coughing. And my stomach muscles were mucho sore.

I never coughed up blood, though.

I guess one thing I would look at is how doctors of the time might have been able to differentiate between tuberculosis and walking pneumonia? If this character had access to a doctor . . .

Both times I had walking pneumonia, the doctors seemed to know just by listening through a stethoscope that I probably had pneumonia. The X-rays just served as confirmation.

Good details, thanks CB (sorry for you having to go through it though!).
Access to a doctor is iffy -- I would say she's lower middle class but it's several months into an economic crisis and she's barely keeping her small shop afloat (millinery, if it matters - could be some chemical/heavy metals exposure too, hoo boy). She does have some volunteer nursing experience (Franco-Prussian War) but that's more for patching people up, and potentially accepting more about germ theory than some docs...and that it is unwise to run about in the cold in rowdy crowds while sick as a dog (but to do it anyway because politics).
 
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smellycat6464

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Good details, thanks CB (sorry for you having to go through it though!).
(millinery, if it matters - could be some chemical/heavy metals exposure too, hoo boy).

Haha, I like this! Although, I'm no expert on mad hatter pathology, I don't think mercury poisoning would compromise the lungs. Besides, it would take a long time for symptoms to present themselves.

Although she could have an allergy to the pelts she used? That would irritate her breathing some.

Oh, and according to wikipedia, hatmakers were often susceptible to tuberculosis as another form of occupational hazard--but that is certainly more debilitating than walking pneumonia. But the steamy environment of her workshop probably won't help her walking pneumonia anyhow.

Happy writing.
 

augusto

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My pneumonia led to a collapsed lung. I had no signs of even being sick, just increasing discomfort in my side. By the time I got to the emergency room I couldn't even stand on my own. Quite painful.
 

boron

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The term walking pneumonia is usually not used for a mild bacterial pneumonia but for "atypical pneumonia" caused by viruses, fungi, mycoplasma.

Symptoms may include dry cough, vague chest or muscle pains, feeling unwell, low-grade temperature, night sweats, tiredness that may last for few weeks to months...Coughing up blood is not typical.

Pollutants can cause chronic bronchitis (coughing up mucus) or aggravate latent asthma (attacks of difficult breathing, wheezing).
 
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melindamusil

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I had pneumonia as a child. At the time, I didn't really feel any different than a bad cold, though I was out of school for two weeks. I wasn't hospitalized but felt pretty cruddy.

When I was in college, I had bronchitis, and THAT was really scary. It actually hurt to breathe - felt like my whole chest was seizing up every time I tried to take a breath. It hurt worse anytime I exerted myself (like by walking to class!). I wasn't sleeping well. The doctor gave me an inhaler and some cough syrup with codeine that was wonderful.

Fwiw - if your character has a corset and coal smoke, I would think a bad cold could be enough to convince her she's in trouble. Especially if someone close to her was recently diagnosed with tuberculosis.
 

snafu1056

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Maybe instead of something serious like Pneumonia (which was a killer back then), you could give her something like a mild case of "the grip", which was basically the flu. A healthy young woman probably wouldn't be in mortal danger from something like that (just uncomfortable).
 

CWatts

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Thank you all for your thoughtful responses. Looks like I have several options. I'm trying to accomplish two things with this - A) add more peril to a situation that, while violent, historically had no fatalities, and more importantly B) give a lifelong city dweller a compelling reason to head West rather than just going on to another gaslit metropolis after getting into some legal trouble. For B I was of course inspired by Doc Holiday's TB but needed something less terminal that would, say, make a stint in The Tombs potentially fatal.
 

CrastersBabies

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When I had bronchitis, I coughed up bloody phlegm. And it was viral, so couldn't use antibiotics. It came and went in about two weeks and boy did it suck.
 

Deb Kinnard

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I'm into my second week of flu/bronchitis now. Crasters is right -- it sucketh big time. I don't sleep for coughing and the cough syrups are ineffective...

But we're talking historical. Could she afford to see a non-traditional practitioner? I'm thinking of someone who works outside the medical community? Like a midwife or a "wise woman"? Maybe the treatment given makes her worse enough to seek a healthier climate.

That may not work for your story, but may get your creative juices revved up a bit.
 

Dave Williams

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I've had pneumonia several times. Besides the expected difficulty breathing, it freakin' HURTS, like someone jammed a prickly cactus inside each lung.

This from someone who has broken many bones, and never took any painkillers other than being put under for surgery.
 

CrastersBabies

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I had full-fledged pneumonia once. (6 weeks after my daughter was born.) I agree with Dave. It hurts. Your back hurts where your lungs are. Your lungs hurt inside, too. Your stomach muscles hurt from coughing. Blech. I hope I never get it again.

A friend of mine caught the swine flu (that developed into pneumonia--of all the things, right?). They had her in the hospital in an induced coma because it was so awful for her.
 

CWatts

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Ouch Dave and CB! Being sick when you have a newborn is the worst - six to eight weeks is the peak of the early fussiness, or it least it was for mine. (He just spent his first New Years Eve at urgent care for labored breathing from his second bout with brociolitis - thankfully the meds worked, it was not RSV and he is back to crawling like crazy.)
I feel sadistic but pain will definitely add drama - she's at risk of a beating but that would just be piling on - then again self-medicating with hooch is a possibility upping risks again....
Feel like I am giving too much away here but is it just too unsubtle for a character to have breathing issues in a story featuring bad behavior by the NYPD? There is not an Eric Garner outcome but everything percolates in my mind, often unintentionally.