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Originally Posted by Dean Jarvis
Not sure if that's what I had this past July. The doctor said it was a virus not pneumonia. It lasted more than 5 weeks with severe coughing and trouble breathing. Lost my voice for 2 weeks. bad stuff.  |
The last three years or so has seen a huge increase in adult cases of pertussis (whooping cough.) Also described as the "100 Day Cough," which fits what my wife had a couple of summers ago. Normally, pertussis was a childhood disease that was largely iradicated by the DPT vaccine. The DPT was a formulated for kids only vaccine, so adults and older kids could get tetanus boosters, but nothing for pertussis. So after 17-18, your immunity is gone. The number of adult cases have skyrocketed since the early 2000's. A couple of years back it was the "plague de jour" in the MSM. In the last few years, they have developed an adult safe DPT, the DTaP. My sons and I had gotten it preparation for a Philmont trip (tetanus part) and never got sick. It's damn near free at the local health dept. and you need it every 5 years.