10 Symptoms of Legionnaires Disease
Symptom #7: Cough
Coughing is common. You don’t even need to be ill to do it. If you inhale something you shouldn’t (i.e. irritants), for example, you will begin to cough to try and expel it from your airway. Sometimes, though, coughing can also be caused by some fairly serious illness.
People with Legionnaires’ disease are likely to develop a cough. At first, it will be non-productive (no mucus or phlegm production), but as the disease progresses cough may become productive. This is because the lungs are trying to expel fluids (i.e. mucus) that have accumulated in the airway as a result of the inflammatory process that occurs in pneumonia. Furthermore, roughly one-third of patients with legionnaire’s disease may also report hemoptysis or the coughing up of blood that originates from the airway.
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