Walking Pneumonia
By Bjarne Lühr Hansen PhD, MD and Philipp Skafte-Holm MD, Mentor Institute
Everyone with walking pneumonia has a fever. Walking pneumonia primarily strikes people between 5 and 25 years, while only rarely children less than 5 years old and older people more than 50 years. Walking pneumonia starts like a common cold with a sore throat, headache, running and stuffy nose, slight increase in temperature and dry cough. A few people become very ill and have trouble breathing. You must call the doctor immediately, if you have trouble breathing.
It is a common misconception that walking pneumonia is a dangerous pneumonia where you do not have a fever. Everyone with walking pneumonia has a fever and in far the most cases, the illness is not very serious.
The illness is called walking pneumonia because its patients can sometimes continue to walk around, while suffering from its symptoms.
The illness is caused by an inflammation of the airways with a certain bacteria called mycoplasma. Walking pneumonia primarily strikes people between 5 and 35 years, while only rarely children less than 5 years old and older people more than 50 years. The illness occurs every winter but approximately every 4 years a lot of cases appear – a so-called epidemic.
Walking pneumonia develops like a common cold with a sore throat, headache, running and stuffy nose, light increase in temperature and dry cough. A few people become really ill and have trouble breathing. However, most people are only affected by the illness in the same manner they would have been by a common cold. The illness is lengthy and many people cough for up to 3 to 4 weeks. Since it is possible to contract the illness several times after each other during the same winter, a few people are bothered by cough for several months.