"With a viral cough, you often have a fever which tends to go up and down," explains Coffey. "With a bacterial infection, such as pneumonia, you tend to have a consistently high fever - usually around 38-40°C." If your fever remains persistently high, it's worth giving your GP a call.
The main symptoms of a chest infection can include: a persistent cough. coughing up yellow or green phlegm (thick mucus), or coughing up blood. breathlessness or rapid and shallow breathing.
Chest infections often follow colds or flu. The main symptoms are: a chesty cough – you may cough up green or yellow mucus. wheezing and shortness of breath.
See a GP if:
you've had a cough for more than 3 weeks (persistent cough) your cough is very bad or quickly gets worse – for example, you have a hacking cough or cannot stop coughing. you feel very unwell. you have chest pain.
Chesty coughs are often triggered by a virus, meaning that antibiotics won't be an effective treatment. They also often follow a sore throat, a cold or the flu. Other chesty cough causes include more serious conditions like asthma, heart failure, chronic bronchitis or a respiratory infection.
Antibiotics kill bacteria but they do not treat symptoms of an illness, such as ear pain, fever, cough or congestion. Fever is treated with an 'anti-pyretic' such as ibuprofen or acetaminophen.
Your doctor will listen to your lungs with a stethoscope. If you have pneumonia, your lungs may make crackling, bubbling, and rumbling sounds when you inhale.
Speak to a GP if:
your cough is particularly severe. you cough up blood. you experience shortness of breath, breathing difficulties or chest pain. you have any other worrying symptoms, such as unexplained weight loss, a persistent change in your voice, or lumps or swellings in your neck.
Most people will be contagious for up to 2 weeks. Symptoms are usually worse during the first 2 to 3 days, and this is when you're most likely to spread the virus.
Does coughing up mucus mean you're getting better? In most cases, coughing up mucus means your body is working to fight off an infection, and it is in the healing stages. Drink plenty of fluids to help thin the mucus.
An acute cough may result from a common cold or other infection. It usually lasts up to 3 weeks but can linger. A chronic cough lasts 8 weeks or more and may be a sign of a lung disease or gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD). A cough may be a symptom of many different health conditions.
Take a Hot Bath or Shower
In a similar way that using a humidifier can help open up nasal passages and loosen up your mucus, breathing in the steam and humid air from a hot shower or steam bath can help ease cough and other congestion symptoms.
So you've been coughing for a while, and instead of getting better, it seems like your cough is getting worse. Maybe you've even started coughing up phlegm or have pain in your chest when you cough. Those are signs your cough might actually be pneumonia.
The symptoms of pneumonia can develop suddenly over 24 to 48 hours, or they may come on more slowly over several days. Common symptoms of pneumonia include: a cough – which may be dry, or produce thick yellow, green, brown or blood-stained mucus (phlegm)
Will I get antibiotics? Both pharmacists can write prescriptions, so if after examining you they feel you have a bacterial infection they are able to write you a prescription for the most appropriate treatment. Many conditions are caused by viruses and do not require antibiotics.
A wet or productive cough is the opposite of a dry cough. It is a cough that brings up fluid, such as phlegm. It can be a sign of a respiratory infection, congestive heart failure, and other conditions.
Treatment. Acute bronchitis usually gets better on its own—without antibiotics. Antibiotics won't help you get better if you have acute bronchitis. When antibiotics aren't needed, they won't help you, and their side effects could still cause harm.