Pneumonia

[carotopgal]

Hi everyone. It has been a challenging couple of days at my house. Tuesday night, out of the blue, my husband started having chills. I ran for the thermometer and took his temp and it was 101. He has had a few urinary tract infections over the years and he thought it was probably that. He agreed to go to the Emergency Room to be seen. By the time we got there and the nurse came in to take his vitals, he had no temp at all! The doctor came in and took his history. I told the doc that my husband was stage 4 Emphysema and he said that just to be safe he wanted to do a bunch of tests as well as a chest X-ray. Lab came back and it wasn't a urinary tract infection. Chest X-ray came back and it was Pneumonia! WHAT?? I've had pneumonia a couple of times over my lifetime and I ran a high fever and was coughing so badly I thought I would die. My husband hasn't even been coughing! He was all grumbly and just wanted to go home, but the doctor wanted to do a CAT Scan to see the extent of the pneumonia. He came back and said it was in his right upper lobe and wanted to admit him to the hospital. My husband said "NO, I feel fine." So since he wouldn't be admitted, they gave him 2 rounds of strong IV antibiotics and sent us home with more antibiotics. We followed up with his GP the next day. The doctor said his pneumonia was bad and he also wanted to admit him, but my husband still said he felt fine and didn't see why he should be admitted. Our GP did yell at him to make him understand how serious this was. I was glad of that!

While we were at the ER and he was hooked up to the machine measuring his oxygen, it beeped the whole 4 hours because he was dropping below 90 even on oxygen. So after he gets over the pneumonia, our GP is going to order a 24 hour oxygen monitoring test for him. Hopefully we can get some answers as to how much oxygen he needs to be on when he's sitting, just walking around, or exerting himself.

My question to the group is this, have any of you had pneumonia and not feel bad, nor have more coughing and have no fever? In fact his temp is now way below normal. UGH! It's all so confusing! How in the world will I know when he's sick?

Thanks for listening to my ramble. I just needed to talk about everything.

[sassy59]

You talk about all you want to as we are all here for you. I have no experience of pneumonia but others have so hopefully you will get some replies soon. Take care xxxx

[carotopgal in reply to sassy59]

Thank you Sassy! It helps so very much!

[casper99]

Hello and welcome if your new.

Your husband is a tough one, isn't he. Haha.

His Docter sounds brilliant. I don't know anything about pneumonia either but, I hope things work out for the better for him. Try not to stress, just let the experts sort your husband out.

Good luck to you both. xx

[carotopgal in reply to casper99]

Thank you Casper99! I am new on here and have found so much help and such nice folks.

[Hayley_]

Im don't have much knowledge with pneumonia but it sounds to me like you caught it early, if it was left much longer he probably would have been feeling all kinds of bad. I went to the doctors a couple of years ago feeling more short of breath than usual so he took my temp and asked a few questions and then told me he thought I had pneumonia. I told him apart from the breathlessness I felt ok and he said it would just get worse the longer I left it. As it turns out it wasn't pneumonia but things like that you just can't leave to chance even if you don't feel too bad. Hope it all works out ok for the both of you x

[carotopgal in reply to Hayley_]

Thanks Hayley!

[Mooskie]

hi carol. i noticed your comments about your husband being at stage 4 emphysema. i am there too. my docs have told me to do everything in my power to prevent pneumonia because i only have around 25% lung capacity and pneumonia .can easily destroy more lung function. i have had pneumonia and no fever!! i very seldom get fevers with any infection!!

i hope your hubby heeds the doctors advice. wishing you luck and better health. jackie

[carotopgal in reply to Mooskie]

I find it so strange not having a fever with an infection. And what is weirder is that now his temp is actually very low at 96.4 and he's cold. I'm so confused by all of this. I'm not sure what his lung capacity is at the moment. He hasn't had a spirometry test in 4 years. Back then it was 36%, but his doc says he's gotten much worse. I wanted him to have the test again, but his doc said it wasn't necessary, that they only really do that test when they are diagnosing emphysema. Thank you for the well wishes and I hope you have a really good day today! Hugs! Vicki

[Mooskie in reply to carotopgal]

COPD is so complicated because the symptoms can be caused by other organs' functions. has your hubby had his heart checked? i hope he is getting better? some of us are so thin, we are always cold. also, our blood circulation can be affected. i hope he is listening to the doc!! good luck.

[carotopgal in reply to Mooskie]

Thanks! He's about the same. He's never had heart problems, but then he's never had his heart checked either. I'm like you and always cold. It's just unusual for him. He actually is being very good and laying around the house (although he grumbles about it! LOL!). It helps that he has a new video game to keep him occupied; otherwise, he'd be very unhappy.

[Mooskie in reply to carotopgal]

wow!! if I am understanding your husband's

situation. he,is stage 4 emphasima but not on oxygen??? Amazing!

[carotopgal in reply to Mooskie]

Oh no, he's on oxygen. Has been for the past 2 years (and should have been on it sooner!).

[Ergendl]

Didn't Hilary Clinton have something called "walking pneumonia" while she was campaigning for the US presidency against Donald Trump? She was able to continue the campaign but was clearly tired and sometimes her voice had less power when delivering speeches.

[carotopgal in reply to Ergendl]

I believe she did. I asked the doc if this was walking pneumonia though, and he said no. My husband just has no "self awareness" around his body. It's weird, he just doesn't feel it when he's sick. It's the strangest thing I've ever seen. And actually the doctor said that it was very dangerous in his case with his lungs.

[Tugun]

Hi,

Wishing you both the best. Being too low isn't good either. I have been told by doctors that sometimes in older people (I am now in that bracket) infection can cause the temperature to drop. Our body's normal reaction to an infection is a temperature.

"Whatever the cause, it's thought the increase in body temperature may be helpful in fighting the infection because most bacteria and viruses can only survive in a narrow temperature range.

By making the body hotter, it may help kill off the infectious organism. But no-one knows this for sure."

ABC Health & Wellbeing

By Cathy Johnson

Updated 9 September 2015 at 11:43 am

If my temperature drops below 35.9C/96.6F then I begin to feel sick. It is only when I warm myself up to normal that I begin to feel better. When I am fighting a chest infection, I keep myself warm - usually with a fan heater as I find that no matter how I am rugged up, if I am breathing in cold air then I don't get better. Once I took some sheets out of the dryer and enveloped myself in them. I had gotten so cold that I needed help to warm up quickly.

I would suggest that you try to bring his temperature back up to normal. It might be that when his temperature goes back to normal, his body's regular processes may kick in and take it a bit higher but as long as it is not too high then he should be fine. Ask you doctor what would be too high.

[carotopgal in reply to Tugun]

This is wonderful information Tugun! Thank you so very much. I will do exactly that today. It just seems so very odd to see him in his winter sweater when it's 80 degrees here in the house. We do have a little space heater that I will go get and turn on him. He will undoubtedly look at me like I've lost my mind, but then that's nothing new! LOL!!

[Tugun in reply to carotopgal]

Hi,

I hope the info proves helpful. A hot water bottle may also help. However keep an eye on his core temperature with a thermometer (from the sounds of it you already have one) every half hour or so until his temperature returns to normal and then make sure he doesn't overheat. Although as an adult he should be able to monitor the overheating part himself. I say "core temperature" because sometimes with a heater the skin may feel warm to touch but the core /inside temperature has not yet reached normal.

Good Luck and hope you don't get too hot!