Whooping cough affects you differently depending on your age.
Babies under 6 months
Whooping cough in young babies is unpredictable and can get worse very quickly. Babies aged less than 6 months old don’t usually whoop.
They may:
stop breathing
go blue with bad coughing bouts
seem to have a cold, then cough and have difficulty breathing
get exhausted from coughing
not be able to feed because of coughing
lose weight because of trouble feeding and because the cough makes them vomit (be sick).
Older babies and young children
In older babies and young children the illness has 3 stages:
The early stage
It starts with a sore throat, runny nose, mild fever and sneezing – just like a cold. This lasts 1 or 2 weeks.
The second stage
Next, there is an irritating cough. Over a week or two, the cough gets worse and comes in bouts. Children gasp for air between each bout of coughing. They get very red in the face. These spells last 1–3 minutes and they may vomit food or spit (phlegm) เล่นเกมคาสิโน UFABET ทันสมัย ฝากถอนง่าย after the coughing. The cough often gets worse with swallowing or eating. In between bouts your child is likely to be well.
The final stage
The final stage is the long recovery stage. The symptoms gradually get milder, but the cough continues for weeks.
Older children and adults
Older children and adults mostly have a long-lasting irritating cough and some still get a severe illness.
Whooping cough can last for weeks or months. If you get a cold in the weeks after you have recovered from whooping cough, bouts of coughing can come back for a while.
Whooping cough is not under control. Every 3 to 5 years there are outbreaks with thousands of people (mostly young children) affected.
More than half of babies under 1 year of age. Who get whooping cough need to be treated in hospital, and 1 or 2 of every 100 hospitalised babies will die. Having whooping cough can lead to pneumonia, seizures, paralysis, permanent brain damage, deafness and blindness.
If you think you or your child may have whooping cough, get an assessment by your healthcare provider as soon as possible. Make sure you tell the receptionist about the cough. When you phone to book an appointment as you will need to be kept separate from other people in the surgery. Older children and adults will need to wear a mask.
Your healthcare provider may be able to diagnose whooping cough after asking questions about your symptoms and doing an examination. They may take a nose and throat swab and send it to the laboratory to check for pertussis bacteria and/or test for COVID-19. A whooping cough swab will only show up positive in the early stages of the disease. Your healthcare provider may ask for a blood test, but not usually.