Bronchitis Treatment

How can I know when chest infection is viral or bacterial?

Please if anyone can tell me what symptoms are for viral and/or bacterial infection, sometimes doctors do not know or do not care enough and overprescribed antibiotics. Thanks for information.

Answer 1:

There is no way to tell without laboratory tests, both have similar symptoms.

Answer 2:

Check mucus after coughing. If it is anything but clear you have a bacterial infection which requires antibiotics. Same rule applies to when you blow your nose. You want watch for yellow or green mucus. Hope this helps you!

Answer 3:

This is a great question, but unfortunately there is no sure way to tell the difference between the two, as the symptoms of both are pretty much identical.

However, in general: viral infections will be accompanied early on by diahhrea or very soft stools and bacterial infections will not. Also, viral infections will usually be over in one week, bac infections can last for longer, even months. Finally, nasal discharge for viral infections will be CLEAR and for bac infections, it will be yellow or green.

Symptoms of the same infection can be different for different people. For instance, I know when I've got a virus because my stomach is usually sore when it starts, and I get an itchy throat early on. Bac infections usually give me heavy sinus pressure and very sore eyes when they are coming on. Once they take hold though, I can't tell the difference any more.

Hope this helps! Good luck getting over your illness!!

PS -- the flu is really going around right now, so if you're sick, there's a good chance you have the flu -- which DOES cause respiratory symptoms in adults.

Answer 4:

A sputum culture may show whether pathogenic microorganisms and/or neutrophils is present in it. Lungs are also infected by fungus.
Please see the web pages for more details on Bronchitis.

Answer 5:

I'm sorry, but ONLY a LAB TEST can tell for sure ... and a doctor must order it, so the only thing you can do is go to the doctor and 'convince him' that you do not want to take any 'antibiotics' until/unless you know for sure you have an 'infection' and not a 'virus' ... which you should be able to do.

Answer 6:

over the counter pills for oral thrush

Answer 7:

If you have watery discharge from the nose and eyes, the infection is viral. Later, nasal discharge changes to yellow or green, but this is due to shed epithelial cells and not bacterial infection. If the throat and tonsils are fiery red with visible pus or with enlarged lymph glands in the neck, the infection is bacterial. If you have fast breathing and chest pain on breathing, it is pneumonia and it must be treated as bacterial, with antibiotics.

What is your definition of viral marketing?

Viral marketing means different things to different people. What does it mean to you? How have you used viral marketing to improve your business either online of offline?

Answer 1:

Viral marketing is difficult to master; but easy to define.

It is something that spreads through word of mouth almost infectiously like a virus where if one person sees it, instantly that person transfers it to someone else.

Viral Marketing Video --> Posted on YouTube --> Seen by Person --> Sent to others via e-mail or posted elsewhere and then the cycle continues. They just keep sending it.

We tried recently to do an online marketing video for this software company and they received good press in the security industry trade journals, but the hope is to have it live on the Website and then have all users forward it to their friends.

Viral marketing is the spreading of your message on a massive scale.

Answer 2:

Viral marketing is named after the virus. The marketing message is set up to travel expotentially like a virus. One person tells 5 who tell another 5 who tell another 5 etc.

The first successful virus campaign is often quoted as hotmail - who put a link for free email at the bottom of each email. This was when email was difficult to obtain.

Nowadays emails can travel around the world in minutes as some hapless people have discovered!

Nowadays yourtube and myspace work on the viral principle!

Why are viral diseases often more difficult to treat than bacterial disease?

I think viral diseases often more difficult to treat than bacterial diseases because viruses are tinnier than bacteria; therefore, they are hard to target. And they have the ability to replicate themselves to attack our bodies.

Am I right? I feel like I am missing an important point....Can someone please give me a better and easy to understand explanation on this? Thanks in advance.

Answer 1:

Viral diseases are harder to beat because unlike bacteria, they have no metabolic processes of their own. When we give some kind of antibiotic, it actually disrupts some part of the bacterias necessary biological processes to continue living. A virus however may choose to reside in a part of our body that our own White Blood Cells do not want to attack. Herpes Virus for example hides out and replicates in our bodies nerve cells. Since our body does not want to kill its own nerve cell in order to kill the virus, the virus remains in place to replicate more virus and invade more nerve cells. Thats just a small example, here is little more in depth. Not all virus live in nerve cells.....

They do not respond to antibiotics or even antivirals because viruses are mutational, they modification their capacity of virulence (attack)...that's why when it's rugged to get over colds because nearby is no medicine that can certainly cure it or stop it...but rather alleviate the symptoms. because they spread trough the upper air, bacterial infections only by contact, you don't entail to touch the infected person, but you have need of to breath Because antibiotics can only be used to treat infections cause by bacteria.However, some infections own become resistant to (unable to be treated by) certain adjectives antibiotics. As a result, these infections are now more difficult to treat than contained by the past:
Staphylococcus Tuberculosis,Gonorrhea,Salmonella">aureu… and
Streptococcus pneumoniae.

Colds,Flu,Most coughs and bronchitis and Sore throats (except for those resulting from strep), are adjectives caused by virus Because there is no drug even so that has be discovered that can kill a virus. Unlike microbes which has adjectives sorts of antibiotics capable of massacre bacteria. Interferon is a hot viral neutralizer but its efficacy is very set or sometimes nothing at adjectives. To treat viral infection, the body has to form antibodies against it and if ample antibodies has be formed slowly the virus will be neutralized. However this is not the shield all the time because nearby are some viruses approaching AIDS virus or Viral Hepatitis Virus wherein the body is unable to produce antibodies so eventually the party dies. Virus is not always detected due to second-rate information on data.Plus cycle of a virus usually completes beforehand it disappear. They do not respond to our antibiotics unlike bacteria virus are not considered living organisms
they are tiny units of protein

we know how cell including bacteria work

A cell is a stand-alone living entity competent to eat, grow and reproduce
virus are nothing similar to that
infact they are extremely tiny particles that are not efficiently seen even lower than some microscopes
they are smaller than bacteria and the cell in our bodies
thousands of times smaller

" a virus must own a host cell in which to live and fashion more viruses.
Outside of a host cell, virus cannot function.Unlike human cells or microbes,
viruses do not contain the chemical machinery (enzymes) needed to convey out the chemical reactions for existence. Instead, viruses pass only one or two enzymes that make sense of their genetic instructions".

so after all is said,
how do you take out the virus without massacre the cell and eventually the person who's cell have be infected ?????????

also, it is hard to treat viral infections because virus change their makeup, they mutate every in a minute and then one years virus is totally different from the subsequent years'
meaning what ever solution
( mostly vaccines)
might hold been used the previous year, will not be decisive the following year

the vaccine works by stimulating the bodys immune response to the virus.
it is made from a weakened,altered or kill virus and helps by sensitizing your immune system to that picky virus and
therefore creating imperviousness

viruses may move from one cell to another minus necessarily entering circulation which also adds to the complication contained by treatment

the list go on.....................!

to sum it up viruses are tiny complicated,persistent and stubborn horrors

Answer 2:

You are on the right track. Viruses are more difficult to treat because they are able to use our host cells to replicate themselves and spread very quickly. With bacteria, they can replicate themselves very quickly but they do not enter our own cells. Viruses also have a very high mutation rate. Most mutations are either meaningless or destructive to the organism, but viruses replicate so many of themselves that the few that have beneficial mutations are instantly selected for and quickly multiply. Thus they can generate resistance pretty easily. Also, viruses can infect our cells and then stay dormant within them until the time is right to spread. That means that a viral infection may no longer exhibit symptoms but still be laying dormant in the body. Thus far, the best way to avoid viral infection is to vaccinate and use the immune system to prevent the virus from infecting our cells in the first place.

Answer 3:

The attack of a virus actually does inter-cellular damage - by invading a host cell, and replicating itself using the host cell DNA. In essence changing itself slightly. And eventually destroying the host cell.
Bacteria are simple single cell organisms, where as viruses are even les complex - like a protein chain with a DNA belt or something.

The way a virus basically reproduces, causes it to evolve quite rapidly, which is why flu shots are given annually with the most common antibody strains. Unfortunately, its just hoping that the virus hasn't mutated enough (exchanged too much DNA) that the shot will do nothing to protect the infected host.

Answer 4:

You are correct in that viruses are smaller than bacteria, but that is not really why they are more difficult to treat.

Viruses are much, much less complex than bacteria. They don't have nearly as many genes compared to bacteria. This means that bacteria produce many more gene products and, consequently, have many more targets for antibiotics to attack. Viruses often produce only a handful of genes, so it is more difficult to find a drug that will kill a viral infection.

Answer 5:

Bacteria go about their cellular business differently than we do. They replicate their DNA, make proteins, etc. with different kinds of machinery than our cells have. They also have different kinds of cellular structures than we do (for example, they have a unique cell wall). These differences provide us with good targets for drugs that won't harm our own cells. For example, drugs that stop bacteria from making proteins won't stop us from making proteins because we do it differently. Drugs that stop bacteria from making their cell wall won't hurt us because our cells don't have a cell wall.
When a virus infects one of our cells, it takes over our cell's machinery and uses it for its own gain - to make more viruses. That makes it difficult to treat because the drugs would have to stop our own cell's machinery. That would probably be ok in an infected cell, but the drug would also get into and damage are cells that were not infected.
Also, you have the right idea about them being tinier. Because viruses have fewer parts (usually just some DNA or RNA and a protein case), there are fewer things for medicines to attack.

Answer 6:

Medical science has discovered the way to kill bacteria- antibiotics. Bacteria can be treated and killed, where as viruses usually have to run their course and last their life span. Our white blood cells can help, but they don't kill the problem.

The size has nothing to do with it. It's the genetic make-up of the cells themselves.

How can I tell if an illness is viral or bacterial?

I have a cough with a lot of phlegm and think I have a virus. I think it's a cold, but a friend tells me I should take anti-biotics as it could be a bacterial in my lungs.
Is there an easy way to differentiate between viral illnesses and bacterial illnesses?

Answer 1:

ask your doctor
jane

Answer 2:

When it comes to the lungs, a dr. usually will take a chest xray to make sure that it's not a bacteria in your lungs (i think bacterial lung infections show up differently on xrays than viral.)

It's not easy to differentiate and even doctors have a difficult time. Sometimes they will look at a sick person's 'sputum' ie. phlegm color. Yellow/green indicates pus generally which means a bacterial infection but red/brown indicates blood which can also be a bacterial infection.

Another complication is that all of the congestion created by a viral lung infection, can mean a person can more easily contract a secondary bacterial infection.

Bacterial lung infections need to be treated completelyl because they can become system wide and then they're really tough to treat. They can also damage the heart, if i'm not mistaken, so any chest infection should be taken seriously.

Answer 3:

Talk to your doctor. do't take antibiotics until you know what it is. they can have bad side effects and can also increase the chance of creating a antibody resistant strain.
be safe, it could be serious. check out www.webmd.com for more information if you need it. but go to your DOCTOR.


-me

Answer 4:

The easiest way is to go to a doctor and get a CBC blood test done. This will tell if your white count is up. If it is, it is a bacterial infection and you need antibiotics.

Answer 5:

See a doctor. Is the phlegm green? That could suggest bacterial. You really need your GP to listen to your chest.

Answer 6:

Blood tests

Answer 7:

see a GP

Answer 8:

Acute bronchitis is inflammation of the upper airways, commonly following a Upper Respiratory Infection (URI). The cause is usually a viral infection though it is sometimes a bacterial infection; the pathogen is rarely identified. The most common symptom is cough with or without fever and/or sputum production. In patients with COPD, hemoptysis, burning chest pain, and hypoxemia may also occur. Diagnosis is clinical. Treatment is supportive; antibiotics are necessary only for patients with chronic lung disease. Prognosis is excellent in patients without lung disease, but in patients with COPD, acute respiratory failure may result.
A physical examination will often reveal decreased intensity of breath sounds, wheezing, rhonchi and prolonged expiration. Most doctors rely on the presence of a persistent dry or wet cough as evidence of bronchitis.
A variety of tests may be performed in patients presenting with cough and shortness of breath:
* A chest X-ray that reveals hyperinflation; collapse and consolidation of lung areas would support a diagnosis of pneumonia. Some conditions that predispose to bronchitis may be indicated by chest radiography.
* A sputum sample showing neutrophil granulocytes (inflammatory white blood cells) and culture showing that has pathogenic microorganisms such as Streptococcus spp.
* A blood test would indicate inflammation (as indicated by a raised white blood cell count and elevated C-reactive protein).
* Neutrophils infiltrate the lung tissue, aided by damage to the airways caused by irritation.
* Damage caused by irritation of the airways leads to inflammation and leads to neutrophils being present.
* Mucosal hypersecretion is promoted by a substance released by neutrophils.
* Further obstruction to the airways is caused by more goblet cells in the small airways. This is typical of chronic bronchitis.
* Although infection is not the reason or cause of chronic bronchitis it is seen to aid in sustaining the bronchitis.
Your doctor may prescribe an antibiotic if he or she suspects that you have a bacterial infection. If you have a chronic lung disorder or if you smoke, your doctor may also prescribe antibiotics to reduce your risk of a serious, secondary infection.
If you have asthma, your doctor may recommend an inhaler and other asthma medications to reduce inflammation and open narrowed passages in your lungs.

How has the application of antibiotics towards viral infections contributed to antibiotic resistance?

Antibiotic resistance is a growing problem in which bacteria responsible for diseases have become impervious to the drugs designed to stop them. How has the application of antibiotics toward viral infections contributed to this problem?

Answer 1:

The way I am understanding is your asking why does our body become immune to some antibiotics, and thus making them stop working. My sons doctor told me it was because if you keep using the same antibiotic over and over again, that the bacteria, can start to resist it because it is used to it being present in the body. For example my 16 month ol son has MRSA, I work in a drug facility, so I am around the jailed population alot, and I guess I brought it home with me, since he is so young he often gets outbreaks, and they need to be treated with IV antibiotics, but the prolem with MRSA is that there are only 3 or 4 antibiotics that work on it, Clindamycin, vancomycin, those are the 2 they usually give my son. I would say he has had about 6 outbreaks since he was 6 months old, and its been very hard because at any time those medications can stop working, thats why his doctor tries alternating the two hoping that his body does not become immune to one of them, because then we woudl run out of options very quickly. I hope this was helpful.

Answer 2:

Because the normal bacterial flora is exposed to the antibiotics needlessly thus killing the weaker ones and allowing the stronger ones to survive and reproduce - making more stronger and eventually drug resistant bacteria.

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