Whooping cough (scientific name - Pertussis) is a bacterial infection that gets into your nose and throat, which means that this is a respiratory disease. Severe coughing spells is one of its characteristics. This severe coughing sometimes leads to a "whooping" sound when the person breathes in, hence the name whooping cough.
This disease mostly affects the infants who are younger than six months. This is the time when they are not protected with appropriate immunizations. Along with the six-month old infants, whooping cough also affects kids between 11 to 18 years old, which is the time when their immunity starts to fade.
Once the individual is affected by this disease, it takes anywhere between 7 to 10 days to start showing any symptoms, while it can take longer in some cases.
Symptoms
The very first symptoms of whooping cough are very similar to that of the common cold:
- Runny nose
- Nasal congestion
- Red, watery eyes
- Fever
- Cough
It is only after a week or two when the symptoms start to get worse. The dry, irritating cough begins which then starts to end in the coughing spells. The duration of a cough spell can last anywhere between a couple of seconds to more than a minute. During this cough spell, the child might turn into red or purple.
At the end of the coughing spell, the child might then make the characteristic whooping sound when breathing in, or may even vomit if the symptoms gets even worse.
The symptoms obviously vary from person to person. It has been found that a child may not cough or whoop as older kids do. Also, they might even look as if they are gasping for air with a reddened face, and they might even stop breathing for a couple of seconds, which usually happens during very bad coughing spells.
The best time to get medical attention is immediately when your kid starts to whoop after coughing. The doctors might be able to help cut down the coughing and other symptoms, and they can also help prevent you from spreading that disease to other people.
According to WebMD, you should never use those over-the-counter cough medicines, such as the cough suppressants, or expectorants (medicines that make you cough up mucus) to treat whooping cough, because they never work.
