{"id":6042,"date":"2019-04-30T02:18:31","date_gmt":"2019-04-30T02:18:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/simplyhealth.today\/?p=6042"},"modified":"2021-03-31T21:10:53","modified_gmt":"2021-03-31T21:10:53","slug":"14-early-signs-of-histoplasmosis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/simplyhealth.today\/14-early-signs-of-histoplasmosis\/","title":{"rendered":"14 Early Signs of Histoplasmosis"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Histoplasmosis is an extremely common fungal infection found in North America. Generally, you get it by breathing in fungal spores that come from the soil. Sometimes, the fungus can be present on wood and you breathe it in when you visit a construction site. However, the good news is that the fungus is not contagious once a gets inside a person and it is usually not serious. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Often, if a person is healthy, the symptoms are mild and resolve on their own. However, there are times where this can be a life-threatening disease. For example, if someone has a compromised immune system or if they are pregnant, didn\u2019t it could turn into something very serious and they need to get help immediately. In addition, smokers and former smokers with COPD can develop a chronic form of the illness that requires extended treatment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. Fever or Chills<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

One of the early warning signs that you will notice with this illness is fever and chills<\/a>. Just like when you have an actual fever, there will be times when you\u2019ll be burning up and other times when you will be cold and need to wrap yourself in a blanket or sit by the heater. This is one of the earlier warning signs, but it still takes a couple of weeks for it to present itself. In addition, some of these symptoms may not appear at all or be very severe depending upon how much exposure you got to the fungus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you had heavy exposure, you can expect that your symptoms will be much more pronounced and possibly even start sooner. You would treat the fever or chills that come with this disease just as you would with any other fever or chills. The best way to combat this is to simply crawl under all the blankets and sleep is much as you can so your body has a chance to fight the infection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

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2. Headaches<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Headaches <\/a>are extremely common with this type of fungus. This fungal infection induces an immune response and inflammation happens throughout the body. This can result in several different symptoms, but the headache is the most common symptom of this inflammation. Of course, everyone gets headaches once a while and they are usually not serious, but you should pay attention to a headache that isn\u2019t going away or is accompanied by any of the other symptoms on this page.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you are pregnant or your immune system is not as healthy as it should be, then you want to pay special attention to the symptoms listed here including headache because you need to seek treatment at the very first sign that you might have this illness. Most of the time though, you can resolve your headache with over-the-counter pain medication until the illness is gone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

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3. Muscle Pain<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Muscle pain <\/a>is a symptom of this illness as well. Although it would usually present after some of the other symptoms, you will notice it around the same time as you notice fever and chills. Sometimes, this muscle pain will be caused by inflammation, but there may be other reasons as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As for treating the muscle pain, you can try to reduce the inflammation that is causing the muscle pain by taking over-the-counter anti-inflammatory medications such as ibuprofen. You can also use muscle rubs and poultices. There are a number of natural remedies out there that you can use as an anti-inflammatory and applied directly on top of the muscle in a poultice form.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

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4. Dry Coughing<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

If you have a dry cough<\/a>, then you may want to pay closer attention to it than other types of cough. A dry cough is only present in certain illnesses. Generally, when people cough, they are coughing to get the mucus out of their lungs. But a dry cough is a little bit different, and there are some serious illnesses that have dry cough as a symptom. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the case of identifying whether or not you have Histoplasmosis or just a regular cold or flu, the dry cough is an extremely good indication that you are not dealing with an ordinary flu virus. With a cold or flu virus, there is an overproduction of mucus, which causes very wet coughs. With this fungal infection, you\u2019re going to see dry coughing instead, and this makes it really easy to identify it. Dry coughing can be uncomfortable, so it is important that you drink a lot of liquids with this illness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

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5. Respiratory Symptoms<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

You may also experience other respiratory <\/a>symptoms as well. One of those is shortness of breath. You should be able to tell when you have shortness of breath by doing activities that used to cause you no problems with breathing and seeing if you have a more difficult time doing them now. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you find yourself breathing heavily on tasks that would have never winded you in the past, then you may want to look into why you are having shortness of breath and other respiratory symptoms and find out if they are due to this particular illness. Respiratory symptoms are usually mild, but they can be extremely debilitating and even dangerous in some cases. If you find that you are having trouble breathing to the point where it is presenting a danger to you then you definitely want to seek emergency care immediately.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

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6. Chest Pain<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Chest pain<\/a> is another symptom of this illness. The problem with chest pain is that it can indicate so many serious issues. Anyone that has chest pain should immediately go to the hospital and get checked out. That\u2019s because people have chest pain prior to and during a heart attack. You obviously only have minutes to seek treatment for a heart attack, which is why hospitals take it so seriously when you come in complaining of this particular symptom. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, there are dozens of things that can cause chest pain from acid reflux disease to regular cold and flu. Unless you suspect you are having a heart attack or the chest pain is extremely tight and intense to the point of being unbearable, then you may want to look at a few other symptoms to make sure that you are identifying it correctly as histoplasmosis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

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7. Extreme Fatigue<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

You may find yourself tired <\/a>all the time as well. The problem is, when the body is sick, it wants to shut down and go into repair mode. But if you are still going about your daily activities and not getting enough sleep \u2013 which most people don\u2019t \u2013 then your body is unable to go into that repair mode. Instead, it is only able to do the most basic repairs which means that you never actually heal from an illness. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When you are sick, you should be getting 10 to 12 hours a day minimum of deep and uninterrupted sleep. REM sleep is when your body\u2019s healing processes function the best, so you want to try to shoot for that extremely deep sleep as much as possible. When you get enough sleep, your body is able to shut down organs and various other activities within the body to concentrate on fighting the infection and removing a completely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

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8. Loss of Appetite<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Loss of appetite is also a pretty common symptom of any regular illness, but it is also a symptom of Histoplasmosis. You know your eating habits better than anyone, so only you can decide whether or not you are feeling less hungry than normal. For most people, they either have a certain meal schedule that they follow any approximately the same amount for each of those meals or they do not follow a particular schedule and instead just be when they are hungry.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In either case, you should be able to tell whether you actually have a loss of appetite that could be due to an illness or if it is a temporary thing. Your body does need food in order to complete metabolic processes that knockout infection, so you do want to try to eat if you can even if you do not necessarily feel like it. Even a small meal will give you some energy <\/a>for your body to process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

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