Looking over symptoms, it's clear I have whooping cough but it has been a struggle to get it diagnosed due to the GPs not considering it. The coughing fits are a nightmare to deal with, initially losing nights of sleep and unable to conduct business in case phone calls or meetings were reduced to coughing fits. At 7 weeks it is starting to subside but very gradually. I have been on a course of amoxicillin and Erythromicin with both having minimal impact.

I have just been diagnosed with whooping cough, and it's horrible. The other night when I was having "one of those terrible coughing spells" my throat started closing up and it was scary. I can handle the vomiting with the coughing, but not the throat spasms. I am now on my third antibiotic, and so far nothing has worked. I had always heard pertussis was bad, but I never thought I would find that out first hand. I will be praying for ALL of those out there with this awful illness, especially the children.

I am 26 male, with a good build and little to no medical history. I have tested positive for whooping cough. I think I have been dealing with it for a couple months before proper diagnosis. The symptoms I had are not too much like the typical descriptions online. I did have a cough, but really never a "coughing attack." It was more of a cough or two to clear my throat, or one big cough that would rattle my chest in a deep way. I had trouble sleeping, because I would lie down and feel like my breathing was being restricted. This was the worst part. I am now on a Z-Pack and hope this clears it up soon. I have just become an uncle and want to see my new beautiful baby niece.

I am from Italy and I'm 42 years old. I got whooping cough two months ago. I was not convinced of my family doctor diagnosis so she made me some blood tests, which were positive.

My bout with pertussis occurred in 1952. I had recently turned 10 years old, and had started school. My parents thought my runny nose and cough were the usual early school-year 'common cold.' But one night I awoke in an absolute panic. I was coughing uncontrollably, and when I tried to suck air... there WASN'T any! I was coughing my lungs empty of air, but I was getting only sips of air back. The gasping whoop sound coming from my throat and chest just made the panic worse. My mother, an RN, recognized the symptoms, bundled me up, and we headed for the doctor's home office, five miles away. I remember almost nothing of the next five weeks, just pain (those coughs HURT!) and terror. But eventually I began to recover, and by the next August I was well enough to attend 4-H camp (but no swimming!).

My five-year-old daughter started with a cough which became more and more severe, no fever, no flu-like symptoms she appeared to be completely healthy which confused us. At night the coughing became even worse with vomiting and gasping for air. When our two month old started with a cough I took them both to the GP who told me there was nothing wrong and gave me cough syrup. Three days later our baby was admitted to hospital by a specialist pediatrician who diagnosed it immediately after one cough. We were in for a week where they monitored her breathing closely as she turned blue when coughing. Our five-year-old is only now starting to get over it after three months. Our baby is three months old and still waking up every two hours with a cough but is slowly getting better. Please trust your instincts and get second opinions from specialists, your baby could die if not watched carefully.

I am a 51 year old male. I contracted whooping cough 6 weeks ago but was only diagnosed after two weeks of coughing. The worst part for me has been the development of laryngospasms (temporary choking episodes) immediately after coughing fits. I had previously had these episodes only two times but the coughing fits have triggered them on a regular basis. Thankfully I have noticed that the severity of the coughing episodes has reduced over the last ten days but still lack energy.

I had pertussis January 2004, at the age of 34. I had just completed a rural medicine rotation and felt like the flu was coming on. By early January I had the infamous cough, just as I was to begin my cardiology rotation. It took three doctor visits before the pulmonologist diagnosed it. It was then6 long weeks with the cough, despite antibiotics. Pneumonia followed and I missed a lot of rotation time.

I had what I thought was a cold back in June, but after a month the cough wouldn't go away. I went to my primary care physician then, and she told me I had bronchitis. I tried inhalers and prescription cough suppressants for another month, but I just could not get the cough to go away -- and it would come in fits, worse at night than during the day, triggered especially by things like eating, brushing my teeth, etc. I went back and they *still* said bronchitis, that it would just "take a long time". So they gave me some codeine so I could sleep, I started using a neti pot to deal with post-nasal drip, and it started getting a little better. Then the ragweed season started, the cough got even worse, and on Labor Day weekend we did some major cleaning and uncovered a carpet beetle infestation hiding behind a cabinet -- and I proceeded to have a five-hour coughing fit that woke me up and sent me to Urgent Care. I barked like a seal in the exam room waiting for the Physician's Assistant, and she pretty much diagnosed pertussis on the spot! Of course, after 3 months, it's not like the antibiotics are going to help me much, but I'm now on inhaled steroids, and those at least seem to be helping the inhaler to work, for the first time. And I guess I'm glad it's pertussis and not asthma, which is pretty much the only other thing I thought it could be.