Whooping
Cough Treatment to Control Symptoms
Whooping cough is an infection
that can be easily transmitted from one person to the other. Although
you are mostly contagious when you first come into contact with
the bacterium, you will remain contagious until the illness is gone.
People of all ages can come down with whooping cough, and your whooping
cough treatment depends on how old you are and the severity of your
symptoms. There is a vaccine for whooping cough but infants who
haven’t received all their vaccines or teenagers whose vaccine
has begun to wear off are most susceptible to contracting the infection.
Whooping cough is transmitted through droplets in the air that are
coughed out of a person who has the infection. If you contract whooping
cough you’ll first experience common cold symptoms such as
a runny nose, mild fever, nasal congestion, watery eyes and sneezing
within 3 to 12 days of coming into contact with the bacterium. Still
your condition will worsen over time, and once they do you’ll
seek a whooping cough treatment from your doctor. Again, there are
various whooping cough treatment options available, but it depends
on two factors: age and symptoms.
If you’re an older child, teenager or adult, your whooping
cough treatment options would include:
- Bed rest
- Antibiotics, which aren’t a cure but
they help shorten the length of the illness
For infants and toddlers whooping cough
treatment options include:
- Hospital care since babies with whooping
cough can suffer complications
- Intravenous fluids
- Prescription sedatives
- Isolation to prevent spreading the infection
You can suffer from whooping
cough for at least six weeks, and unfortunately over-the-counter
cough medications won’t help much to lessen the severity of
the cough. There aren’t many medications that will serve as
a whooping cough treatment or help with whooping cough symptoms.
Sometimes antibiotics don’t work either, but if they’re
slow to work your doctor may prescribe you a few extra weeks worth.
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