How to treat bronchitis: the basic rules
What is bronchitis and why does it occur
Under bronchitis understand inflammatory disease that affects the bronchi, or rather, the bronchial mucosa.
There is bronchitis for various reasons and can occur in acute and chronic form.
Bronchitis due to occurrence may be:
infectious – pathogens are bacteria, viruses, fungi;
allergic – as a result of an allergic reaction to any substance to which intolerance exists;
caused by constant inhalation of harmful substances – at work or when living in an environmentally unfavorable area;
the so-called bronchitis of the smoker, which develops with systematic irritation of the bronchi by cigarette smoke, can be attributed to the latter.
Acute and chronic bronchitis – causes and course of the disease
These forms of bronchitis differ in both manifestations and methods of treatment. But for any form of the disease, coughing will be an indispensable symptom of it.
Acute bronchitis
Causes: viral or bacterial infection. Often, acute bronchitis develops after SARS, flu, when the infection from the nasopharynx goes down to the bronchi.
Symptoms:
in the initial stage – high temperature and dry cough, then the cough becomes wet, the temperature decreases;
general weakness;
sweating;
wheezing and chest pains;
in severe cases of dyspnea.
There is weakness in bronchitis.
Acute bronchitis lasts an average of 2 weeks. Untreated disease can become chronic.
Chronical bronchitis
Such a diagnosis is made if during a period of two years a person has exacerbations that last a year for a total of 3 months or more.
Causes: acute bronchitis that has not been fully treated, which has passed into the chronic form; constant irritation of mucous dust, particulate matter, toxic substances, including tobacco smoke; fungal infection.
Symptoms:
constant cough that occurs in the early stages in the morning, wet;
a large amount of sputum;
during exacerbation – increased cough, increased sputum (may be mixed with pus), weakness, sweating;
shortness of breath – with severe stage of the disease;
with a long (many years) course of the disease – thickening of the ends of the fingers and fingernails.
How to treat bronchitis
How to treat a cough
Most of the torment in bronchitis is coughing – in acute bronchitis at the onset of the disease, it is dry, tearing, increasing by the night. Therefore, the first thing that is needed is relief of cough. How to treat a cough (and bronchitis, respectively)?
With a dry, painful cough, antitussive and combined remedies are indicated (synecod, bronhikum, libexin).
Take the medicine you need on doctor’s prescription.
When sputum is formed, but it is too thick and clogs the bronchi, mucolytics will help – means diluting sputum (ambrobene, bromhexin, bronchoxole lasolvan).
Expectorant drugs increase sputum volume and help it out of the bronchi (solutan, mukaltin, althea root, licorice root).
In no case can not simultaneously take antitussive and expectorant means.
In no case can not simultaneously take antitussive and expectorant means.
On these issues, there is no consensus among doctors.
Antibiotic treatment will be effective for bronchitis caused by bacteria. If the cause of bronchitis is a virus, then the antibiotic will not help (and only harm, killing the beneficial microflora).
How to distinguish bacterial bronchitis from viral? As a rule, the symptoms of viral infection disappear in 4–5 days. If there is no improvement after this period: the temperature stays within 37.3–37.8 degrees, a strong cough, pus appears in the sputum, but there is no cold, eyes do not water, then this indicates the bacterial nature of the disease. And here antibiotics will be useful.
If bronchitis is quite easy, then antibiotics should not be used.
With regard to antiviral drugs, many doctors say about their unproven effectiveness. That is, in fact, they are considered dummies.
Massage for bronchitis:
increases blood flow
improves ventilation,
prevents congestion in the bronchi and the development of pneumonia;
contributes to the rapid discharge of sputum.
Massage is effective in chronic bronchitis, as well as in the stage of recovery. Massage can not be done in the acute period of the disease.
With bronchitis are used:
percussion massage – shock massage of the chest and back;
drainage massage – a point effect on the intercostal spaces and contraction of the diaphragm;
honey massage – back massage with honey applied to it with light clapping of the palms;
can massage – back massage using vacuum cans.
Inhalation
Inhalations are carried out, either using special devices – inhalers and nebulizers, or in the old fashioned way – having covered the blanket with the head and inhaling steam from most often potatoes.
Inhalers may be used for treatment.
How useful are inhalations for bronchitis?
The most common method – over a pot of hot potatoes – will undoubtedly moisturize the bronchi, but one should not expect a special therapeutic effect from such inhalation.
