The Bronchitis kid does not have to be sick to get Bronchitis either. They can breathe a powdery dust, smoke, and there are some fumes that may cause an irritation of the lining of the lungs. Irritation of the lungs can cause problems if they are not treated with either bronchodilators or antibiotics.
There are many ways to diagnose the Bronchitis kid. Doctors will use a chest xray, blood work, sputum cultures, and sometimes even do a test called an Endoscopy to go down and withdraw a piece of the lung for testing. The trick is to get the Bronchitis kid to the doctor as soon as you think he is getting sick. If you let him linger, the infection could go deeper and deeper and become more purulent. If this happens, it will be hard to fight the infection and he may need to be hospitalized to prevent obstruction of the airways.
If the Bronchitis kid starts coughing up blood, there may be a problem. Sometimes this can be from coughing too hard or too much and little blood vessels break in the back of the throat. If the child is coughing up buckets of blood, ten a trip to the Emergency Room is warranted. This could be a diagnosis from pneumonia to cancer, so you must take the child as soon as possible to be treated.
If the child is in their teens and has started smoking, then you need to convince them to stop. This can help build up more mucous and phlegm in the airways and make breathing even more difficult. It can become cumbersome to breathe while smoking. It is not a good habit to have if you have Chronic Bronchitis.
The Bronchitis will usually last for up to twenty days or more. The child will start to feel better after the antibiotics have kicked in. They will still have some of the minor aches and pains, but they will be able to breathe much better.
Some kids have to be hospitalized so they can be monitored for their breathing. If their oxygen saturation level gets too low, it could mean the airways are closing and they may need to be intubated until the trauma has passed. The doctor will gives them courses of antibiotics and breathing exercises to get the lungs back in shape again. The child will not be extubated until the doctor is sure he won't have to re-intubate. If the throat swells, there is no way to get the tube back down the child's throat.
Whether the illness is acute or chronic Bronchitis, constant monitoring of your child will lead to a better outcome. If the illness gets too far ahead of the medicine, pneumonia or even airway closure can occur. Get your child to a medical facility as soon as possible and get the proper treatment started. This will give the Bronchitis kid a fighting chance to get rid of the disease before it gets a foothold in his system. Then they can stay far away from the hospital and all that it entails.