(4) The cough gradually becomes more severe. The disease is most infectious during this period, which lasts one to two weeks. The paroxysmal stage is when pertussis is...Steven Schweon
Since stage two of whooping cough can continue for up to 10 weeks, recovery from whooping cough can be very slow. In this stage, it’s likely that you’ll have fewer coughing fits, but they can still occur, and your cough will become milder and less common as you heal. During this s...
A bacterium known as Bordetella pertussis causes "whooping cough". The name refers to the whooping sound made upon breathing in during a prolonged coughing spell. This vaccine-preventable illness can be life-threatening to young children and even the elderly. In its early stages, it looks like ...
Why is Whooping Cough So Serious? The pertussis bacteria releases a toxin that damages the tiny hairs in the airway. Those tiny hairs help move mucous out of the lungs. Without them it is much harder to expel mucous. This makes the coughing much more dramatic. The mucous that pools in th...
See a doctor if you don't have symptoms but have been in contact with someone else who has whooping cough. You might need to take medication that can help fight the disease in case you catch it. This needs to be taken before the third week of illness is over, because the bacteria has...
Whooping cough has been on the rise not only overseas but also in China recently, with the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention reporting 32,380 cases nationwide in the first two months of the year as well as 13 dea...
When two twin girls in Phoenix were stuck at home with whooping cough this summer, they turned what could have been an unpleasant experience into a positive one. The 11-year-olds, Ileyna and Flori, caught whooping cough in July while away at summer camp. They came home with very bad co...
During this phase of the disease, parents often think that it is “a bit of a cold” and the child continues to go to school or kindergarten, infecting others. The cough gradually increases in intensity and duration and becomes spasmodic. Whooping cough is so specific that a doctor needs to...
Person affected with whooping cough makes a whooping sound while trying to breathe in after coughing for some time. This sound is a trademark symptom of whooping cough. This ismostly observed in adults, as small kids or infants end up gasping for breath after coughing hard in whooping cough....
That's critical, Offit explained, becauseyoung infants are most at riskof becoming severely ill with whooping cough. Whooping coughtypically causes cold-like symptoms, followed by bouts of coughing that can go on for weeks. For infants, that can lead to dangerous breathing problems, lung infecti...