Can respiratory diseases kill people

Mild respiratory diseases are rarely life-threatening, but severe and emergency respiratory diseases can indeed be fatal.

The common colds that we often get, allergic rhinitis and mild pharyngitis that occur during the change of seasons are actually respiratory diseases. Most of them can be cured by relying on their own immunity in about a week. At most, they will be unable to sleep due to coughing and uncomfortable nasal congestion. It is basically not fatal, and many people can even recover without taking medicine.

But in special circumstances, the risk may be much higher than everyone thinks. When I was on duty in the respiratory department last winter, I admitted a 72-year-old COPD patient. He could normally maintain a normal life by regularly inhaling oxygen at home, but his grandson who went to school brought the flu home. After the old man was infected, he was afraid of trouble and had to carry it for two days before coming to the hospital. When he arrived at the clinic, his blood oxygen saturation had dropped to 76%, and he couldn't even speak a complete sentence. A CT scan showed that most of his lungs had inflammatory consolidation, and he was still unable to be saved after staying in the ICU for 21 days. There was also a 3-year-old child suffering from acute laryngitis. The parents initially thought it was a common throat infection, so they gave him some anti-inflammatory drugs and ignored it. They rushed to the hospital when the child developed a barking cough and turned purple. On the way, he suffocated. Fortunately, the emergency medical staff saved his life by performing a tracheotomy in time. If it had been more than ten minutes later, the consequences would have been unimaginable.

There is no need to panic too much about respiratory diseases because of these cases. Currently, for most healthy people in clinical practice, even if they get relatively severe respiratory infectious diseases such as influenza and COVID-19, the probability of developing severe illness is less than 1%. Nowadays, many people still think that respiratory diseases are just minor problems and should not be taken seriously. Some people are so scared that they are going to have a serious illness after coughing twice. In fact, these two mentality are unnecessary. Pay attention to wearing a mask for protection, and the elderly, children and high-risk groups with underlying diseases should receive relevant vaccines in a timely manner. If there are abnormal signals such as high fever lasting for more than 3 days, breathlessness, chest pain, and coughing up blood, don’t bear it and go to the hospital for investigation in time. This can basically avoid getting serious.