To make a list of the symptoms of bronchitis, we will have to look at the two types, acute bronchitis and chronic bronchitis separately. One comes on rapidly while the other could come in very slowly and affect you for years.
Acute bronchitis usually starts with a cough and a sore throat and maybe a headache and then progresses to chills and fever. There is a general weak and flu-like feeling and the cough gets worse as the days go by. The infection can be bacterial or viral and very often it could come on after a cold or a sinus attack. You feel like you are not able to breathe in enough air and besides this feeling of being short of breath, you also suffer from excessive coughing with your chest and abdomen hurting with the effort. You can suffer from muscle aches as well. For some, the coughing and phlegm lead to wheezing and a tight feeling in the chest. If you do not treat the condition in time, the lungs could get inflamed and you could get pneumonia.
Not all colds, flu and sinus attacks lead to bronchitis. In fact, most of them run their course and then the symptoms disappear. However, these conditions tend to weaken the body’s defenses especially in the respiratory tract and it makes it easier for the bronchitis bacteria or viruses to get in and attack the respiratory functions. Both colds and bronchitis could have similar symptoms but while colds affect the nose, mouth and throat, bronchitis affects the wind pipe and the airways in the lungs. Colds can lead to bronchitis or colds and bronchitis could affect you at the same time together. While colds affect you above the larynx, bronchitis affects you below it. Typically, a cold or flu lasts a few days affecting the upper respiratory tract and then it might progress to an attack of acute bronchitis which could last for anything from a few days to a couple of weeks. Coughs too do not always mean you have bronchitis. A cough could be the result of an allergy or it could be a symptom of flu. Since the chances are that it could also be bronchitis, it helps to go seek medical advice as soon as possible. Even if it isn’t bronchitis, you can prevent an attack by treating the cough as soon as possible so your respiratory system isn’t as susceptible to attack.
In chronic bronchitis, the first symptom might be a dry cough. This condition is usually found in smokers and the cough could last for a long time. There is mucus build up in the respiratory tract and the person could feel like he is short of breath. However, it takes a long time for the symptoms to progress and become severe. Meanwhile, coughing, getting out of breath and wheezing could become part of their daily life. These people could get attacks of fever, chills and aches on and off but for the rest of the time, it is mainly the cough that affects them.
The coughing in both the types of bronchitis gets worse very often at night. In fact, people could find it very difficult to sleep at night because the coughing keeps making them wake up. With so much mucus being expelled from the system, you tend to feel dehydrated and you must make sure your intake of fluids is a lot so you don’t get weak. Sometimes, the cough makes you feel very short of breath and you could experience rapid heartbeat, lightheadedness and discolored mucus. These signs mean that you should immediately contact your doctor and get treatment. If your wheezing is bad as well, you need assistance and the doctor will very often prescribe an inhaler.
Asthma patients need to be very careful if they have contracted bronchitis because they could have severe wheezing and breathing problems and they need immediate treatment if this happens.
A very high fever when you have bronchitis must be attended to at once because it could mean that you could have contracted pneumonia. You could feel very tired because your breathing isn’t too good and you could be getting less oxygen than you should.
If there are any signs of blood in your sputum, you must get medical assistance immediately. The sputum can be colored white, yellow or green and you need to let the doctor know so he can prescribe medication accordingly.
In most acute bronchitis cases, where the person enjoys normal good health, the symptoms last for around two weeks but the cough usually goes on for much longer, even up to a month. In chronic bronchitis, the cough can go on for years. This long drawn out cough can cause a lot of scarring in the bronchial tubes and this in turn means there is excessive mucus formation which leads to the cough getting worse.