Whooping cough - symptoms in adults

Today whooping cough is considered a rare disease. However, the reason for this may lie in the inadequate experience of young physicians leading patients. Unfortunately, there are cases when the patient suffers whooping cough on his legs, as he was diagnosed with banal ARVI. Therefore, it is not out of place to learn what are the symptoms of whooping cough in an adult.

Signs of whooping cough in adults

The disease refers to infectious and is caused by Bordetella pertussis. Its development is cyclical. It is noticed that in the history of mankind there were periods when there were practically no mention of whooping cough, and then real epidemics took place that claimed thousands of lives. In general, pathology is dangerous for children, but can adults suffer from pertussis?

In fact, infection easily affects a person at any age. Adults get sick less often because of the formed immunity, which suppresses the activity of pertussis. In this case, it is worth remembering that the microorganism quickly becomes unviable in the environment and infection occurs by direct contact with the patient.

The pertussis symptoms in an adult include a paroxysmal cough, which is dangerous because it can lead to spasm of the bronchi. In the clinical picture of the disease, there are 3 stages.

Catarrhal takes approximately 2 weeks. It is during this period that the first symptoms manifest themselves:

• dry, strong enough cough, tormenting the patient constantly:
• general malaise without fever.

This period is often confused with a disease with bronchitis or ARVI. As a result, treatment is ineffective. If the doctor is able to recognize the first signs of whooping cough in adults at the catarrhal stage, the treatment passes quickly. In the absence of a competent approach, cough becomes paroxysmal.

The paroxysmal period is characterized by several symptoms, according to which it is already easy to determine the pathology:

• specific cough attacks , consisting of 5-10 bronchial spasms;
• During an attack, spasms occur almost without rest;
• at the end of the attack the patient makes a convulsive breath, as during a cough he can not breathe;
• the breath is often accompanied by a whistle;
• it does not exclude a cramp of the glottis;
• when restoring normal breathing, the attack is often repeated;
• the attack proceeds with the release of sputum, its swallowing can lead to vomiting;
• Coughing causes tension in the muscles of the face, resulting in redness of the skin;
• The tongue can protrude outwardly during coughing, which sometimes leads to trauma to the organ.

If the doctor does not recognize the first symptoms of whooping cough in adults, treatment is delayed. Paroxysmal seizures can last up to 3 months, practically exhausting the patient.

The final stage means remission, during which the coughing fits gradually wane.

Diagnosis of whooping cough in adults

If suspected pertussis, laboratory diagnostics is performed. Bacteriological seeding is not highly effective, confirming the diagnosis only in 15-20% of cases. Serological methods Are good at advanced stages. Modern analysis of antibodies makes it possible to detect the disease due to the presence in the blood of the early stage of IgM antibodies and in the late stage of Ig G.

There are methods for rapid diagnosis with the determination of corpuscular antigens B. The advantage of the method is that after a few hours it is possible to refute or confirm a preliminary diagnosis. The method of detection of latex microagglutination allows after 30-40 minutes to detect antigens in mucus taken from the surface of the posterior wall of the larynx.