I am a 38 year old woman. I had a few days of being ill with the flu (high temperatures and aching) and had to stay in bed. Then I started to develop a cough, felt amazingly better for a few hours (and probably over did things in my euphoria!). Over the next few hours I became increasingly short of breath, classified by shallow, rapid breaths, very hot again and the cough increased. I went to our “out of hours” service and was told I had viral pneumonia. I was given steroids, a nebulizer and some antibiotics (just in case, although he thought it was unlikely to be bacterial), the Doctor ideally wanted me to go to hospital. After 12 hours my breathing had improved although I was still short of breath on exertion. The main treatment is rest and lots of fluids. Hope this helps someone. This was quite a frightening experience.

Chills, coughing, abdominal pains.

My daughter recently had this. She had high temperatures for a few days. The doctor said she just had a virus! Look for shallow fast breathing and bad cough. Get close to your child and listen to their breathing. I could hear a crackly sound.

I had pain in chest and I was out of breath. I also have an itchy bleeding blister rash all over my body for 5 weeks now. I'm feeling better after two weeks of antibiotics, but I still have a little trouble breathing. The rash is still with me. I am still weak. Just getting out of bed wears me out. The first visit to doctor, she gave me prescription for physical therapy because she thought I pulled something. I never went to therapy. I got really bad and my husband took me to local ER. They took more X-rays and said I had viral pneumonia. I will be 70 in Oct. I have never had anything like this before.

I'm an 81 yr old male. I presently have no temperature, but have periodic coughing spells - mostly non-productive. I'm also feeling quite weak and lie down about every half hour. No night sweats or pain in my chest however.