Symptoms of Bronchitis

Bronchitis is one of the most common types of disorder pertaining to the airways that carry air to the lungs. The symptoms of bronchitis can lead to two types of health complications, namely acute and chronic. Though the inflammation of the airways and respective symptoms are common to both types of bronchitis, the symptoms also vary from one type to another. While acute bronchitis is a medical condition that make one suffer immensely just as it is occurred from a viral infection during mostly a vital illness, chronic bronchitis is a medical condition that may develop over a prolonged course of time spanning over months. Let us now surmise two different types of bronchitis before further elaborating the symptoms of bronchitis in two different types.

Clinical definition

Bronchi is the large and medium airways through which air passes and reaches lung and inflammation of this airways through injury or viral infection is called bronchitis. Now according to the factors leading to the development of this inflammation of bronchi and emergent symptoms is called bronchitis that can be of two types, acute bronchitis and chronic bronchitis. Symptoms of bronchitis vary as per these two different medical conditions.

Acute bronchitis

Acute bronchitis is the type of bronchitis where cough is developed in the back of the throat and the cough can contain sputum or may not, depending upon the severity. Acute bronchitis tend to occur in the time of influenza, flu, severe cough and cold or similar medical condition and in almost 90% of cases viral infection causes this disease while only 10% of the cases are actually caused by bacterial infection.

Chronic bronchitis

Symptoms of bronchitis in the chronic type are more common and chronic bronchitis is typically characterized by a productive cough that lasts for a considerable time. In contrast to the acute bronchitis, chronic one is caused mainly by injurious substances that enter the airways through breathing. Smoking is considered as the most common cause of this type of bronchitis besides other air pollutants that can injure the air ways in the breathing tract.

Symptoms

Let us now look at the symptoms of bronchitis in both acute and chronic type separately.

Symptoms of Acute Bronchitis

As we have seen the development of cough behind the throat with or without sputum is the basic to characterize acute bronchitis. Acute bronchitis can be characterized through the following symptoms.

1. A persistent hoarse cough with dryness of mouth is the first symptom of bronchitis.
2. The cough may be with or without sputum and can be varying colors according to the severity, like clear, yellow or greenish.
3. Sometimes in developed cases dots of blood may be observed in the coughed up mucus.
4. Hoarseness of voice and throat.
5. Persistent fatigue.
6. Breathing trouble and difficulty in breathing with wheezing sound present when trying to breathe deeply.
7. Mild fever can also be observed.
8. In case of acute bronchitis with other grave complications like pneumonia, other acute symptoms can be observed like high fever.

Symptoms of Chronic Bronchitis

The symptoms of bronchitis in chronic type do not fundamentally differ from the acute one. The only difference is here the symptoms may be milder and less painful but in the long run with persistence of the cough and injury of the air ways can prove to be more damaging. Some of the common symptoms of chronic bronchitis include yellowish or greenish mucus coughed up, presence of sputum in the cough, persistent fatigue, chest pain and shortness of breath. Chronic bronchitis typically happens to people with a heavy smoking habit and can lead to further complications corresponding to lung health.