Lung Diseases—Bacterial Infections

Bacteria are living things that have only one cell. Under a microscope, they look like balls, rods, or spirals. They are so small that a line of 1,000 could fit across a pencil eraser. Most bacteria won’t hurt you – less than 1 percent of the different types make people sick. Many are helpful. Some bacteria help to digest food, destroy disease-causing cells, and give the body needed vitamins. Bacteria are also used in making healthy foods like yogurt and cheese.

But infectious bacteria can make you ill. They reproduce quickly in your body. Many give off chemicals called toxins, which can damage tissue and make you sick. Examples of bacteria that cause infections include Streptococcus, Staphylococcus, and E. coli.

Antibiotics are the usual treatment. When you take antibiotics, follow the directions carefully. Each time you take antibiotics, you increase the chances that bacteria in your body will learn to resist them causing antibiotic resistance. Later, you could get or spread an infection that those antibiotics cannot cure.

NIH: National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases

• Actinomycosis (Medical Encyclopedia)
• Bacterial vaginosis — aftercare (Medical Encyclopedia)
• Blood culture (Medical Encyclopedia)
• Gram stain (Medical Encyclopedia)
• Gram stain of skin lesion (Medical Encyclopedia)
• Necrotizing soft tissue infection (Medical Encyclopedia)

When you breathe, your lungs take in oxygen from the air and deliver it to the bloodstream. The cells in your body need oxygen to work and grow. During a normal day, you breathe nearly 25,000 times. People with lung disease have difficulty breathing. Millions of people in the U.S. have lung disease. If all types of lung disease are lumped together, it is the number three killer in the United States.

The term lung disease refers to many disorders affecting the lungs, such as asthma, COPD, infections like influenza, pneumonia and tuberculosis, lung cancer, and many other breathing problems. Some lung diseases can lead to respiratory failure.

Dept. of Health and Human Services Office on Women’s Health

• Alveolar abnormalities (Medical Encyclopedia)
• Blood gases (Medical Encyclopedia)
• Breath sounds (Medical Encyclopedia)
• Chemical pneumonitis (Medical Encyclopedia)
• Chest tube insertion (Medical Encyclopedia)
• Coughing up blood (Medical Encyclopedia)
• Lung disease (Medical Encyclopedia)
• Lung PET scan (Medical Encyclopedia)
• Pulmonary edema (Medical Encyclopedia)
• Pulmonary function tests (Medical Encyclopedia)
• Solitary pulmonary nodule (Medical Encyclopedia)