Whooping cough is a highly contagious disease caused by bacteria. The disease is also known as pertussis (pronounced pur-TUSS-iss). The most prominent symptom of whooping cough is a distinctive, uncontrollable cough, followed by a sharp, high-pitched intake of air. This intake of air causes the characteristic "whoop" for which the disease is named.

There are two separate stages of the disease, the first of which is the least symptomatic and the most contagious, the second of which is mostly a side-effect of the recovery process. In the first stage, symptoms will be like that of a moderate to severe cold, including histamine reaction (sneezing, watery eyes, runny nose), mild fever and possible chest congestion. Discharge produced by coughing will typically be yellow or light green in color if present, as is common in cases of bacterial infection of the upper respiratories. Sore throat will often be conspicuously absent, save that which may be caused by the cough.

Although it's considered a vaccine-preventable disease, whooping cough (pertussis) certainly hasn't been eliminated as a public health problem. While most other diseases that are vaccinated against in childhood are decreasing in frequency, cases of whooping cough actually increased through the 1980s.

Children under the age of two, particularly infants, are most at risk for serious infection, although the disease can occur at any age. However, once an individual has been exposed to B. pertussis, subsequent exposures result in mild illness similar to the common cold, and thus usually not identifiable as resulting from B. pertussis.

Causes

whooping cough, is an upper respiratory infection caused by the Bordetella pertussis or Bordetella parapertussis bacteria. It is a serious disease that can cause permanent disability in infants, and even death.

When an infected person sneezes or coughs, tiny droplets containing the bacteria move through the air, and the disease is easily spread from person to person. Initial symptoms, similar to the common cold, usually develop about a week after exposure to the bacteria. Severe episodes of coughing start about 10 to 12 days later.

Signs and Symptoms

Early signs and symptoms
Once you become infected with the bacterium that causes whooping cough, it takes about three to 12 days for signs and symptoms to appear. They're usually mild at first and resemble those of a common cold, such as:
A runny nose

Nasal congestion

Sneezing

Red, watery eyes

The child develops a cold with a marked cough, which becomes more severe and spasmodic after a few days. At the end of this spasm, the child gives a characteristic whoop. As the paroxysms of coughing increase, the disease becomes less infective.

Treatment

Drosera. [Dros]

Drosera is one of the remedies praised by Hahnemann; indeed, he once said that Drosera 30th sufficed to cure nearly every case of whooping cough, a statement which clinical experience has not verified. Drosera, however, will benefit a large number of the cases, if the following indications be present: a barking cough in such frequent paroxysms as to prevent the catching of the breath; worse in the evening. All efforts to raise the phlegm end in retching and vomiting. The attacks are especially worse after midnight; the child holds its epigastrium while coughing. The drosera child cries a great deal.


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Autor: peterhutch

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