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The primary symptoms of pneumonia are fever, chills, cough, chest pain, and shortness of breath. The patient often coughs up sputum (pronounced SPYOO-tum; usually made up of saliva, mucus, dead cells, and other materials) that may be streaked with pus or blood. In the severest cases, a patient shows signs of cyanosis (pronounced SI-uh-no-sis). Cyanosis is caused when a patient's blood is not getting enough oxygen. It is characterized by a blue tint on the nail beds or lips.
The major symptoms of walking pneumonia are:
- Moderate to severe cough - often junky sounding, but not always.
- Sustained rapid or labored breathing (as opposed to temporary rapid breathing from a high fever).
- Medium to high fever - usually will be over 102, but not always.
- Chest pains - not just during coughing, but in between coughing fits as well.
- Vomiting - not just vomiting from a big coughing fit, but vomiting even in between coughing fits.
- Blue color around the lips and face - from lack of oxygen.
- Wheezing - although wheezing is more often a sign of a viral chest cold, it sometimes can mean pneumonia.
- Usually begin with vague symptoms such as feeling tired or weak, headaches, sore throat, or diarrhea.
- Eventually, most develop a dry cough. They can, also, develop fever, chills, earaches, chest pain, enlarged lymph nodes in the neck, and muscle or joint pains. A few patients may feel short of breath.
- People do not appear as sick as those suffering from other types of Pneumonias do.
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