just looking for encouragement I guess. I’m on day 10 off after having pneumonia and trying to get back on the training wagon (smartly) for my first kona. obviously with such a short time, I can’t afford to get it wrong and have any other setbacks. doc treated pretty aggressively with prednisone taper, two antiobiotics and a nebulizer with albuterol. finish up meds on sunday and hoping to make a smart comeback after that. (FWIW, I have a coach, I trust him I know we will do it right but just looking for anyone else who’s been through something similar and any advice you might give in retrospect)
Never had pneumonia but have had many injuries. The most important thing for you to do is to listen to your body. If you are tired rest. Don’t push the workouts to make up for lost time. Do what your body can take for the first couple of weeks and you will be back where you were before you got sick before you know it.
I had pneumonia this year as well. Was diagnosed on May 15th after a half Mary. I did a 10 day run of anti booties and prednisone as well. I still cough a little after intense workouts but feel pretty solid during. It took me around 3 weeks to feel close to 100% but i only took 7 days off training. Did Muncie 70.3 last weekend and felt fine. Good luck…
awesome. good to hear. I was guessing 3 weeks is where I will feel more comfortable pushing things. being a little more conservative than I would ordinarily because I don’t want to screw it up. I hate the prednisone- if I were to do it again I wouldn’t take it unless my life depended on it!
glad you got back for muncie. thanks for sharing
just be careful, ramp up slowly and pay attention to your aches and pains. back off training as needed, better to be undertrained than sick.
I had pneumonia then followed it up with pleurisy. This was mostly due to life-stress rather than training stress, but it’s all stress to your immune system…
That was Feb/Mar 2006, raced Nationals in July and qualified for worlds, so longterm prognosis is good, just be careful in the early stages.
be careful, wife and I had to assist a guy whose friend died on a tough hike a week after he had recovered from pneumonia. he was older, but it is a serious illness. I had it when I was ~10 years old. I remember the pain still!
I missed the entire month of March of my senior year of high school.
Don’t push too hard too fast!!
10 years ago, I had pneumonia that accelerated into ARDS. I was in the hospital for a week. When I came out, I was super weak. A kitten could have beaten me senseless. It was a full year before I was 100%.
If you overdo it, you’ll delay your recovery. If I pushed it too hard I’d wheeze and frighten bystanders.
Admittedly, my case might have been worse than yours, but that’s the one thing I learned.
I had pneumonia pretty bad a couple years ago. It was the sickest I’ve ever been by far. It was in the winter so I just laid off training for about 6 weeks. The first 3 weeks were because I couldn’t and the last 3 weeks were because I was still feeling like poop although probably capable of doing something minimal if I had had the balls. I didn’t totally stop coughing for about 3-4 months. All tolled between the sickness and missed training, it was about 6 months before I was back at 100%. It eclipsed my recovery times from an appendectomy and mono during my teen years.
If you’re feeling good, go for it but if you have any legit fear of a relapse (talk to yoru doctor), take it easy. Serious pneumonia is nothing to mess with. I used tho think it was just a bad cough, now I totally see how it can kill people.
yea, I had a good friend die of ARDS in high school after they didn’t treat the pneumonia aggressively enough. The anniversary of her death was just a few days after I was diagnosed so it hit home pretty hard. I’m 2 weeks in now and have more energy. I haven’t been coughing a ton but haven’t been able to do much yet but sleep. we will see how it goes… one day at a time. not much else I can do but rest and wait for my body to come around.
doc said I could attempt a little light exercise this past weekend upon finishing the meds and I got hypoxic and light headed after a mile so he ordered a CT today. I don’t think there’s anything new to see but its good he’s being proactive. I have some time on my side, but I wish I had more… looking like this week is yet another week off 
As others have said. Take it easy. I had a bad bought a number of years ago. Sickest I have ever been. I rarely get sick, but this forced me into bed for several weeks. Was off work for three weeks( it’s the only time I have ever had to officially take time off from work for being sick). Lost a lot of weight. Fitness was back to ground zero and lung capacity was diminished by 25%. That’s the bad news. The good news is that, I was able to more or less make a full recovery and the fitness did come back - but it took a long time. I was told that the diminished lung capacity would most likely be permanent, but as a life long endurance athlete, it’s not something I would notice that much as the lungs can super-compensate - or so I was told.
One thing that I have noticed that is different post-pneumonia is that on really humid heavy air days, I can get asthma-like feelings in my chest when doing really intense all out efforts.
I had it in May 2010 and it took several months to get back to normal. But I eventually got there. I remember when I started walking I was at like 150 or 160 bpm just on a leisurely stroll. Just take it really, really easy, it will all come back, but that depends on each person’s case obviously.
Yes. I havew come back from pneumonia coupled with a blood born bacterial infection. It was about a year after my daughter was born and I was completely exhausted. I can’t remember how long it took to feel normal again, maybe 6-7 months, but I made it. Take it easy and try to realize you’ve lost a bighunk(I accidentally misspelled that like a candybar) of your fitness and you can’t take shortcuts to get it back. Keep at it and you will get there!
Yes. As others said, the most important thing is to take as much time to heal thoroughly as needed. Pushing it early will benefit you none and likely prolong your recovery or break your body down even further.I
Again, you may be a three-weeks-and-out case. You’ll know more when you ease (and I do mean ease, and short duration) back into workouts. It sounds like you’re really well prepared up to date for Kona, so you’ll probably be all right even if you take a few weeks off.
Again, mine is a bit of a scary story as I had pneumonia following consecutive bouts of dengue fever, chikungunya, and typhoid fever. So it was bad, and I didn’t take it as easy as I should have, so it was several months before the cough and pain were really gone. But I am truly all better now and happily delving back into training.
One thing to be aware of is what type of antibiotics you took. Fluoroquinolones (like levofloxacin/Levaquin and others) have been linked to soft tissue rupture/damage and so if you took these, you need to be extra careful.
All the best and again, if you are vigilant and do what you need rather than perhaps what you’d like, you will probably be just fine and not lose very much.
Again, mine is a bit of a scary story as I had pneumonia following consecutive bouts of dengue fever, chikungunya, and typhoid fever. So it was bad, and I didn’t take it as easy as I should have, so it was several months before the cough and pain were really gone. But I am truly all better now and happily delving back into training.
OMG! Dengue is The Worst! I have never been in as much pain in my life as with dengue. I wish we could enclose our palapa (house) in mozzy screen (but since it is made of tree trunks and grass, not really an option). You have my respect. Dengue SUCKS. 
It helps if you don’t think of it as a week off. Think of it as a week when your body’s working very hard to regenerate and get you healthy.
I had pneumonia 4 weeks out from IMFL in 2004. Figured out the Wednesday before the race that it had returned. Yeah, I did the race any way. Doctor was a little bit less than pleased with my decision making process. Run sucked even worse than normal. Walked the last 10 miles wrapped in a space blanket.
Make sure you are recovered before you hammer on your body. People die from pneumonia related diseases all the time. I was a moron but had no long term issues and with a second round of drugs it cleared up.
thanks for that. trying hard to remember that. still waiting on the CT results but feeling better about 75% of the time. during the day I feel like working out but I’ve been holding back. once I stop (I’m a PT so I’m moving around all day) I kind of crash still. hoping to have one of the better experiences with it but thanks for all the reminders about how serious it is. if I had any doubts, almost passing out after a mile jog was a nice wake up call…