Ok this really sucks … I wake up this morning looking forward to 5 hour ride today. I get out of bed and I feel like someone dropped a piano on my chest. By the way there was no sign of this yesterday, other than a headache I could not get rid of. Any was diagnosed with pneumonia; slight case caught early. So my question is how long before I can get back at it? Thanks.
It depends. Upon how much you rest, what kind of pneumonia it is, your underlying immune system function, etc. IOW, who knows? Don’t take it lightly, though…just last month I saw a stout 40 year old man that had influenza (the flu). It progressed into pneumonia, then frank pulmonary failure. They had him on an artificial lung by the time I was called in to work on him. They were able to give him a chance by going to the artificial lung, but, within a couple of weeks, he died. Several other relatively otherwise healthy relatively young people died from the flu in the area last month. Don’t take a diagnosis of pneumonia lightly. Get well before you get back “to it”…what’s a couple of weeks of working out compared to getting well?
Thanks. When you describe it that way I will just take it easy and make sure I get fully recovered. I always thought that to get pneumonia you had to have some kind of respitory infection that morphed into that, but I guess that is not necessarily the case. I just cannot figure out what triggered this and how I got it.
One year ago tomorrow I did St. Anthony’s and felt like hell on the run. The next day I came down with bacterial pneumonia, who knows how you get it, I had never had it before.I think it was from swallowing all that Tampa Bay water:) I never get sick and take care of myself, so it caught me off guard as well. Doc said 30days no activity,I couldn’t do jacksh** I had to hire a yard man to cut my grass.
Damn, that must have sucked big time. I hope that I don’t have to be sidelined for that long, but health first. I should know more tomorrow when I go back to see how my white cell count has changed.
not a doc…a “victim”. three years ago in february i got nailed. my gf found me at home on the couch after calling for a day and no response. in a matter of about a day i went from normal to very tired, to didn’t know the phone was ringing. by the time she got me to the ER i could not put two words together in proper order to begin a sentence. hospitalized for a week and down for 5 more after that.
my doc threatened me with bad things if i even thought about training through the recovery. i listened and rested and visualized my training. ended up with a pretty good year but that scared the crap outta me. take more time than you think you will need for the recovery. not worth the relapse.
Sounds similar it just came over me so quickly. The good news is that it was caught very early. Yesterday my white cell count was 29,000+ and today it is 9300. Doc said that since we caught it early I should recover pretty quickly. I get checked again on Tuesday and provided things are in check he said I could start training again next week. Albeit just easy workouts, but that is something to look forward to.
I am not a Doc, but I did have a bad case of pneumonia 5 years ago. This is a SERIOUS illness and should not be taken lightly at all. You need to FULLY recover, before going back to training.
I was bedridden for 3 weeks. I have never been sicker in my whole life. I realized then why this can be a killer, to the very young and old. Here I was, 39 years old in great shape, and I was completely on the ropes.
Depending on how deep it goes in your lungs you may have permanant lung damage. I know I do. My lungs have never been the same. When I was fully recovered, I started back, but it felt like I was almost starting from scratch.
Serious stuff. Be careful.
Fleck
Hi. So if you have documented pneumonia you should finish your course of antibiotics (did they give you a Z pak or 7-10 days of Oflaxacin). Anyhow there are no guidelines as to when to return but I would say at least 1-2 weeks before you train seriously. Long distance training along with intense training decreases your immune system, thus you should do everything to avoid stressing it further, however you have to balance loss of fitness against return of health. SO my advice, if you have no races planned I would take 2-3 weeks off. If you are racing finish your course of antibiotics and after that add in one week of easy training before you get back. Remember that after two weeks of inactivity you have not lost excessive fitness. In addition you may consider taking glutamine as a supplement. Studies show that it is a key amino acid in neutrophils which protect the immune system and that endurace atheltes are often depleted. Good Luck
Thanks for the reply. Yesterday I received a shot of antibiotics in the “rear end” plus 6 Levaquin (750mg) tablets to be taken daily. Chest x-ray showed that “the lower left lobe” had some fluid in it. I have got to say after the shot, the two days of rest, and additional antibiotics I am feeling almost 80% of normal. Hopefully I will get the clean bill of health on Tuesday. And I plan on taking it easy for the next week or so, I just did not want to hear that this was like my recovery from mononucleosus (sp?), which seemed to take a couple of months.