When bacteria and viruses enter the lungs, they cause an inflammation first. This is not a serious problem, but if the person infected happens to have a weak defense system then this simple infection triggers pneumonia, which is an illnes that must not be ignored.

In the early 1900's pneumonia was the disease with the biggest number of victims in the United States, but then antibiotics were discovered and most of the problem was solved.

There are two main types of pneumonia: lobar pneumonia and bronchial pneumonia. Lobar pneumonia only affects one lung, and bronchial pneumonia affects them both. Fortunately, since the discovery of antibiotics, what once used to be a severe, death-causing illness, now can be treated at home. If you follow the treatment and take your medication the disease will be cured in one or two weeks, depending on the patient.

The first pneumonia symptom is coughing and fever. A few days after later, a greenish liquid is eliminated when you cough, and the fever gets worse. Then pain in the chest starts to be felt, and when the illness advances the patients start to cough blood, loose appetite, vomit, and their skin gets a blue color. These symptoms are not the same in all patients, they may vary from one person to another, and they also depend on what caused the pneumonia.

If you experience any of the symptoms mentioned above then you should immediately visit a doctor. If the symptoms indicate pneumonia then the doctor also makes an x-ray on the patient and sometimes some blood tests. If the diagnose is pneumonia, then the antibiotic treatment starts.

The treatment is easy, and in most cases it can be done at home, but if the disease advanced too much before the diagnose then the patient has to stay in the hospital for a while. The doctor first performs a test to determine whether you are allergic to certain antibiotics or not, and then based on the results of this test the best antibiotics are administered.

You may get the pneumonia virus or bacteria from school or work, so preventing it is not too easy. But fortunately this illness is not what it used to be and it can now be easily cured.