1.What is Mycoplasma pneumoniae and how does he make children get sick? Mycoplasma is a tiny microorganism smaller than bacteria, but larger than a virus; it invades the body and lives mainly in the cells. Of the 16 species of mycoplasma isolated from the human body, 5 are pathogenic to humans, and mycoplasma pneumoniae is the “culprit” that causes disease in babies. When a patient sneezes, coughs, or comes into close contact with a patient. Mycoplasma pneumoniae will spread with droplets and enter the infected baby’s respiratory tract, causing a respiratory infection in the child. 2. Which children are susceptible to Mycoplasma pneumoniae and how to prevent it? From the transmission of Mycoplasma pneumoniae, we can know that Mycoplasma pneumoniae is mainly spread by droplets, so if there are people with Mycoplasma infection at home, or if children go to school, participate in group life, and there are patients with Mycoplasma infection in the group, they may be infected. The majority of children are around 3 years old. The way to prevent it is to wear a mask to prevent transmission if there are coughing people in the family, and pay attention to hand washing, because many droplet-borne diseases are transmitted to each other through the hands of children. 3. What are the symptoms of Mycoplasma pneumoniae infection and how is it diagnosed? Mycoplasma pneumoniae infection is mostly manifested as pharyngitis, rhinitis, bronchitis and capillary bronchitis. The cough is initially dry and then turns into a stubborn, violent cough without sputum or with a small amount of mucous sputum, especially at night when the cough is more pronounced, and in infants and young children it manifests as wheezing and breathing difficulties. With timely treatment, it rarely turns into pneumonia. Children of different ages behave differently. The younger the child, the less fever there is and the cough may only appear, but children under 1 year old may wheeze more if infected. Older children may have a high fever that lasts for many days. If a child over 4 years old has an unexplained high fever and conventional treatment of the infection does not work, mycoplasma infection must be considered. Mycoplasma infections are usually treated in an exclusionary way, because from the spectrum of childhood diseases, viral and bacterial infections are the most common, followed by respiratory inflammation caused by allergies, if the child’s cough and other symptoms are not relieved by the treatment of the previous two conditions, mycoplasma infections should be considered, and it is more meaningful to test the titer of mycoplasma antibodies, if the child has related symptoms and the mycoplasma antibodies are found to be progressively elevated The diagnosis can be made. 4.How is mycoplasma pneumoniae infection treated? The key to the treatment of Mycoplasma pneumoniae infection is the choice of antimicrobial agents, because mycoplasma exists mainly in the cells, and the often used cephalosporins and penicillin antimicrobial agents have a low concentration in the cells and are less effective. Now generally use azithromycin, erythromycin to treat, especially recommended is Zithromax (Pfizer’s azithromycin), because the drug is better purified, the effect is also more significant, many primary hospitals, because there is no such drug, resulting in incomplete treatment of children, repeated attacks. And for cough caused by Mycoplasma pneumoniae infection, nebulization is a better adjunctive treatment. Nebulization is the dispersion of drugs into tiny droplets or particles through a specific machine or high-flow airflow impact, so that they are suspended in the gas and enter the respiratory tract and lungs to clean the airway, purify the airway, local treatment (antispasmodic. Anti-inflammatory. Expectorant) and the purpose of systemic treatment. Because of the direct entry into the respiratory tract to take effect, the use of small doses of drugs, than oral or injectable effects are to come good. 5.How long is the treatment course of Mycoplasma pneumoniae infection? When to stop the drug? Because Mycoplasma pneumoniae lives in the cells, so to completely kill, it takes a long course of treatment to Zithromax treatment, for example, generally Zithromax treatment for 3 days, stop 4 days for a course of treatment, mycoplasma infection generally requires treatment for 4-6 courses, and to completely no cough, fever symptoms for more than 3 days, too early to stop the drug, the course of treatment is not enough to easily recur. 6.Mycoplasma pneumoniae antibody titers do not drop, is it necessary to keep treating? Because mycoplasma pneumoniae infection in children, mycoplasma antibody titers may exist in the body for up to 3-6 months, so we should diagnose mycoplasma pneumoniae infection theoretically at least two blood draws to see a continuous rise in titers to confirm the diagnosis, but because of the invasive nature of blood draws, there is usually no need for multiple blood draws, and the diagnosis can be made through the child’s symptoms. The success of treatment is still judged by the symptoms, which means that as long as the symptoms disappear and the course of treatment is sufficient, you can boldly stop the medication without waiting for the antibody titer to drop completely. Similarly, because of the nature of mycoplasma antibody titers, there is a misconception that leads to overtreatment of Mycoplasma pneumoniae infection. Because cough is a very common symptom in children, often parents or inexperienced doctors, seeing a child coughing and previously having Mycoplasma pneumoniae infection, check the mycoplasma antibody titer several times and, seeing a high titer, treat the child according to mycoplasma infection, which is actually incorrect because mycoplasma infection must be a diagnosis of exclusion, with an idiosyncratic dry cough, high fever, exclusion of common bacterial and viral infections, exclusion of allergies Otherwise, diagnosis and treatment based on titer results alone is often ineffective and a waste of medication. It is not uncommon to see children with a history of allergies who have an obvious phlegm cough with recurrent coughs being treated repeatedly as mycoplasma infections.