Mycoplasma pneumoniae is threatening, how to deal with it？ Experts give you a trick!

　　Mycoplasma pneumoniae

　　In autumn and winter, respiratory diseases are high, and mycoplasma pneumoniae infection is even more threatening, and the number of infected people is increasing. How should parents deal with it? The child has a cold and a fever. Do you want to go to the hospital? Cough hasn’t been cured. Do you want to take medicine? Is infection with mycoplasma pneumoniae equal to pneumonia? Don’t worry! Professor Tian Man, Director of Respiratory Department of Nanjing Children’s Hospital, was specially invited to the live broadcast room to talk with you about the prevention and treatment of mycoplasma pneumoniae!

　　Mycoplasma pneumoniae infection ≠ Mycoplasma pneumonia!

　　Mycoplasma is a microorganism between bacteria and viruses, and it is also the smallest microorganism known to exist independently in the world at present. There are many kinds of mycoplasma, and Mycoplasma pneumoniae is only one of them. Because the name of Mycoplasma pneumoniae contains the word pneumonia, many people think that infection with Mycoplasma pneumoniae means pneumonia, but it is not! Infection with mycoplasma pneumoniae does not necessarily mean that it will develop into pneumonia. Most of them are respiratory infections. Only when mycoplasma pneumoniae invades the lower respiratory tract of human body can it lead to pneumonia.

　　Mycoplasma pneumoniae can be transmitted by droplets and direct contact, with an incubation period of 1-3 weeks, and it is contagious from the incubation period to several weeks when symptoms are relieved. Healthy people may cause infection after inhaling nasal and oral secretions ejected by patients when coughing or sneezing. The main symptoms of infection are fever and cough, and may be accompanied by headache, runny nose and sore throat. Generally speaking, people of all ages are likely to be infected by mycoplasma pneumoniae, but preschool children and school-age children are more likely to be infected, and there are more severe patients, such as persistent high fever, intermittent aggravation of lung imaging, and even a series of complications.

　　How to judge whether you are infected with mycoplasma pneumoniae?

　　The symptoms of mycoplasma pneumoniae infection are similar to those of respiratory tract infection caused by other viruses or bacteria, such as fever, cough, runny nose, sore throat, etc., so it is difficult to clearly judge whether it is mycoplasma pneumoniae infection from the clinical symptoms. At present, the recommended diagnostic method is pathogen detection, mainly including nucleic acid detection, antigen detection and antibody detection.

　　01

　　Detection of nucleic acid or multiple pathogens: Many people think of Covid-19 as soon as they hear the detection of nucleic acid. Why should we carry out nucleic acid detection for mycoplasma detection? In fact, nucleic acid detection is just a method, and a nucleic acid package can be used to check a variety of pathogens, including mycoplasma pneumoniae. Nucleic acid detection has high sensitivity and specificity, and can give accurate results soon, so it is a recommended detection method for mycoplasma at present.

　　02

　　Detection of mycoplasma antigen in throat swab: We should be familiar with the antigen detection, and the operation is relatively convenient. You don’t need to draw blood, just check the throat swab, and the antigen can be found at the beginning of the disease. If it is positive, it is considered as infection or carrying, which is simple and convenient.

　　03

　　Blood test for mycoplasma antibody: Blood test for antibodies is of little significance in the early stage of the disease, because it takes time to produce antibodies after being infected with mycoplasma pneumoniae, and it usually takes 7 days to get sick.
It will only appear in a few days. When you get sick, check the antibody, which may show negative, but it cannot be ruled out that it is mycoplasma pneumoniae infection. At the same time, even if the antibody is found to be positive, it does not mean that the patient is infected with Mycoplasma pneumoniae this time, because after the antibody is produced, it will last for several months to one year, and the antibody found this time is probably the antibody left after the previous infection with Mycoplasma pneumoniae.

　　So what kind of antibody results are clinically meaningful? That is, the antibody was negative when I was just sick, and I was sick for a week or 4 ~ 5.
Days later, the reexamination was positive, which suggested that it was infected with mycoplasma pneumoniae this time.

　　Can routine blood tests determine whether you are infected with Mycoplasma pneumoniae? The answer is no. The biggest function of blood routine examination is to judge whether the patient belongs to bacterial infection. If it is bacterial infection, the early blood routine examination will prompt the increase of white blood cells and neutrophils, which is the most important function of blood routine examination in clinical application. However, virus infection, mycoplasma infection or other pathogen infection can not be clearly distinguished only according to the blood routine report.

　　What situation needs to go to the hospital immediately?

　　With the prevalence of mycoplasma pneumoniae infection, Director Tian Man said that 70% of the children in the outpatient clinic are still infected by virus, and the respiratory diseases caused by virus infection are self-limited diseases, so parents need not be too anxious. If the child has a fever, cough and runny nose, but his mental state is not bad, he can observe it at home for 2-3 days first.

　　However, if the fever does not go down for more than three days, or if the child suffers from listlessness and loss of appetite, especially after taking antipyretics, or if he suffers from shortness of breath, inspiratory depression, nasal wing agitation, cyanosis, and blood oxygen saturation below 95%, it is recommended to see a doctor immediately.

　　How to treat mycoplasma pneumoniae infection?

　　Mycoplasma pneumoniae has a special structure and no cell wall, so the familiar antibiotics such as penicillin and cephalosporin, which target the cell wall, are completely ineffective against it. At present, the first choice for the treatment of mycoplasma pneumoniae is macrolide antibiotics, such as roxithromycin and azithromycin. If it doesn’t get better after three days of medication, it may be that Mycoplasma pneumoniae has developed drug resistance, and it is recommended to change the dressing under the guidance of a doctor.

　　Does the child "cough cough cough" need medication?

　　Infection with mycoplasma pneumoniae usually causes a severe cough. Because mycoplasma pneumoniae can damage the mucous membrane of our airway and the cilia on the airway, the secretion can’t be discharged smoothly. At this time, the patient will help the secretion to be discharged through coughing, so it will cause a severe cough. Cough may last for a long time, generally not more than 2 months, and the symptoms of cough will improve after the mucosa and cilia of the airway are restored.

　　Many parents want to give their children some cough medicine as soon as they hear their children "cough cough cough", for fear that they will cough into pneumonia if they cough for a long time. In fact, cough is a self-protection mechanism of the body, through which secretions can be excreted without causing pneumonia. On the contrary, many children with severe pneumonia don’t cough much, which eventually leads to sputum accumulation in the trachea and lungs, aggravating the condition.

　　If the child’s cough is too severe, which affects the rest of life, then cough medicine can be used under the guidance of a doctor. At present, children’s antitussive drugs are mainly divided into two categories. One category contains antitussive ingredients, and the ingredient is pholcodine or dextromethorphan, which can achieve the purpose of antitussive by directly inhibiting the activity of the cough center. It belongs to central antitussive drugs, and this drug can only be used for children over 6 years old. The other kind belongs to expectorant drugs, which act on sputum and make it dilute and then excrete it through coughing.

　　How to prevent mycoplasma pneumoniae infection?

　　Unfortunately, there is no vaccine to prevent mycoplasma pneumoniae infection at present, but as a respiratory disease, there are still many feasible measures to avoid infection as much as possible.

　　1. Wear a mask when going out and try to avoid going to places where people gather.

　　2. Pay attention to hand hygiene, wash your hands with running water after returning home, and take off your coat and put on your home clothes.

　　3, pay attention to indoor ventilation, ventilation for not less than 30 minutes at a time.

　　4, reasonable diet, moderate exercise, to ensure adequate sleep, improve their immunity.