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Chest Infection, Coughing, Fever, Aspiration Pneumonitis, Bacterial Pneumonia

Posted on Thu, 17 May 2012

Question: Hi We have just come back from seeing a doctor who diagnosed my 3.5 year old as having a chest infection. My boy had his tongue tie released on Tuesday, then that night he started coughing very violently. From Wednesday afternoon onwards he started having medium and high grade fever. The doc told us that it's possible for the boy's blood to have gone down the wrong way and caused him to have a chest infection. The boy's symptoms are: coughing , especially at night (though we keep him elevated), high grade fever on and off, and a running nose. It just seems strange to me that the blood from his tongue tie release procedure could have caused a chest infection.

Answered by Dr. Dr. Prasad J (4 hours later)

Dear XXXXXXX

Thanks for your query.

Blood or any other foreign body aspirated into lungs described medically as "Aspiration Pneumonitis" can get infected secondarily. Yes, they can produce symptoms of cough, high grade fever and breathing difficulties.

Sitting this far without physical examination and looking at the Xray films, I cannot comment on the diagnosis.

Pneumonia can also be caused by virus or bacterial infections.

An Xray / CT scans of the chest can differentiate among these 2 conditions.

The treatment of both Bacterial pneumonia and Aspiration pneumonitis is the same - a course of antibiotics. While viral pneumonia's are self limiting illness.

I hope I have answered your query.

If you have any more queries, I will be available to answer them.

Wish your son a speedy recovery.

Best Regards

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Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar