What Is Bronchitis ?
Bronchitis is the name given to inflammation of the bronchitis the large air tubes to the lungs: in response to infection, the lining of the tubes becomes swollen, fluid-filled and engorged with blood. There are two distinct types of bronchitis: acute bronchitis, which is an infection; and wheezy bronchitis, which may be partly, or totally, caused by an allergy. Treatment of the two condition is quite different, so diagnosis is very important.
Causes
Any germ breathed in and carried down towards the lungs may settle in the bronchitis and cause infection. These air tubes may respond to this infection by becoming swollen, thus narrowing the diameter of the airway. Dead and dying infected tissue lining the bronchi will then be shed as sputum, more commonly knows as phlegm. The situation, however, is sometimes more complicated: the child may have inherited, possibly unknown to all, a tendency to asthma. And, if this becomes obvious only when the child has a cough or cold, his or her condition-may be temped by some doctors as wheezy bronchitis. Children do not suffer from the disease which in this, there is permanent bronchitis; in this, there is permanent bronchial damage due mainly to cigarette smoking. Nevertheless, bronchitis is commoner in children whose parent smoke. It is also more common in boys than in girls, in children who are overweight, or who live in crowded urban areas and in poor housing condition. A child may also be more prone to bronchitis if a member of his or her family suffer from asthma, eczema or hay fever.
Symptoms
Often, the first sings of bronchitis are those of a cold. But after a few days, the child develops a moderately raised temperature of 37.2° C to 37.8° C (99° F to 100° F), coughs, sounds chesty and may wheeze. In severe cases, the child may have difficulty breathing, and complain of tightness across the chest. Sucking in of the chest on breathing in, is a prolonged compared with breathing in, is a sign that the airway is obstructed. There may also be more obvious signs, such as coughing up a grayish white, yellow or green phlegm; however this is unlikely in a child under seven years old as younger children tend to swallow sputum. Fortunately, acute bronchitis is rarely severe and usually lasts about ten days, although there may be residual cough for some time. Wheezy bronchitis may last longer, occur repeatedly and eventually merge into typical asthma. If there is no wheeze, but after a week the cough gets much worse, then the child may have whooping cough.
Bronchiolitis
Between the ages of three and eighteen months, babies are prone to a related condition called bronchitis. The bronchioles are a smaller set of air tubes. This condition occur in epidemics every winter and is invariably caused by a virus (RSV). Symptoms are similar to bronchitis but the cough features less than the breathlessness and general difficulty in breathing; fine wheezes may be heard when the baby breathes out. Bronchiolitis is often very severe, with the baby becoming blue exhausted and unable to feed. Sometimes there is associated pneumonia and the heart is put under great strain. But with careful nursing in hospital, using oxygen, intravenous or stimulants, virtually all babies makes a complete recovery. READ MORE