For the past few years, there have been a lot of television commercials advising seniors to get the pneumococcal vaccine. One commercial in particular shows an older woman and her grown daughter and the woman says that she almost wasn’t here because of pneumococcal pneumonia. It was only a matter of several days that found her in the hospital in critical condition.

Concerned and with the advice from her doctor, my wife got the pneumococcal pneumonia vaccine. She thought she was safe.

Last Wednesday evening she started feeling her glands in her throat swell. She still has her tonsils and they often swell and get sore with different infections. On Thursday, she was feeling worse and started a cough. That night, she was chilling and beginning to cough more. Friday morning, she said she felt like she was running a fever and she didn’t feel well. We called the doctor and were fortunate to get her in about mid-afternoon. When he saw her, he said she sounded like a smoker’s cough, knowing that she has never smoked. After examining her, he diagnosed her as having pneumonia in her left lung.

She asked the doctor about the pneumococcal pneumonia vaccine and he said the vaccine doesn’t protect against all forms of pneumonia. The doctor said he wasn’t sure what kind of pneumonia she had but was hoping it was only walking pneumonia. He prescribed an antibiotic and said if she wasn’t any better by Monday that he wanted her to have a chest x-ray.

We were curious exactly what walking pneumonia is, so I looked it up. One source says that it is a milder form of pneumonia caused by mycoplasmas. According to the National Center for Biotechnology Information:

“Mycoplasmas are spherical to filamentous cells with no cell walls. There is an attachment organelle at the tip of filamentous M pneumoniae,..”

“Mycoplasma pneumoniae infection is a disease of the upper and lower respiratory tracts. Cough, fever, and headache may persist for several weeks. Convalescence is slow.”

MedicineNet.com defines walking pneumonia as:

“Walking pneumonia is a non-medical term to describe a mild case of pneumonia. It can also be called atypical pneumonia because the disease is different from more serious cases of pneumonia caused by typical bacteria.”

“Pneumonia is a disease of the lungs that often results from a lung infection. Lots of things can cause pneumonia, including:”

• bacteria
• viruses
• fungi
• other infectious agents, such as mycoplasma
• chemicals
• inhaled food

“Walking pneumonia is often the result of a lung infection from a bacterial microorganism called Mycoplasma pneumoniae.”

So, what does the pneumococcal vaccine protect against?

According to another source:

“Pneumococcal disease is an infection caused by the Streptococcus pneumoniae (S. pneumoniae) bacterium, also known as pneumococcus. Infection can result in pneumonia, infection of the blood (bacteremia/sepsis), middle-ear infection (otitis media), or bacterial meningitis.”

If you, like my lovely wife, got the pneumococcal pneumonia vaccine, be advised that it only prevents the pneumococcal pneumonia and does not protect against other types of pneumonia. Therefore, if you feel a deep cough coming from deep in your chest, or your chest hurts when you breathe or cough, see your doctor as it could be a form of pneumonia that you are not protected against. The sooner you see the doctor the better off you will be and the early treatment can be given. The longer you stubbornly wait, not only will it take longer to recover, but you may get to the point where recovery isn’t possible.