Would you ever get medical attention for a cold?

[TheStarburstConcept]

I’ve got a horrific cold. It’s been bad in the evenings/nights for three weeks or so now, but for the last two days, it’s been awful. The room is spinning, I’ve got a horrible cough, I’m wheezing when I breathe half the time, I’m struggling to finish conversations. Sleeping doesn’t seem to help because I keep waking myself up coughing or with a crazily runny nose, that’s mental at night but absolutely blocked during the day. Everything hurts.

There’s not much I can take for it as I’m 21 weeks pregnant, and rest is hard to come by with a two year old. I’m doing honey and lemon; hot showers, Vicks, Olbas oil inhalers. I think that’s all I can do, no decongestants or anything. But I genuinely feel so, so awful.

Trust me, a hell of a lot of people attend urgent care centres for colds.
But you do sound like you need to see someone, being pregnant does make you slightly more vulnerable to infections etc

You sounds like you have a secondary infection, I get them a lot with a cold (sinusitis or bronchitis usually) and end up at the doctors for ABs.

Yes, I would go to A&E for a cold if I needed to, and I have been in an ambulance before. If you're asthmatic you should be following your action plan from the GP or asthma nurse which is probably telling you to get seen!

You've got similar symptoms to the ones I had recently. It was pneumonia! Get seen asap!

Yes! I had a cold and felt a bit off, ended up ringing the OOH doctors who said come in, I was coughing constantly and she said I couldn't speak a full sentence

Sat in the waiting room watching them come speeding out with a nebuliser and stuff, being nosy looking around like you do to see who was ill

That would be me I had pneumonia. 6 nebulisers that weekend, steroids, 2 courses of antibiotics, my white cell count was so low they wanted to admit me

Did you have a cold that started to clear up before suddenly becoming much worse. Sometimes a cold leads to a secondary bacterial infection and sometimes you just think you've caught another cold. You really need to speak to a doctor. I've had it happen at least five times in the last ten years. One time my tonsils became swollen and white with a fever so high it terrified my husband who thought I was going to die after seeing how ill I looked. Another time, it went into my ears as well and I ended up deaf for three months. Last time, I had to have a fortnight worth of penicillin to get rid as I was riddled, eyes, nose, throat, ears, chest. The nice young A & E/out of hours doctor visibly recoiled, when he looked in my throat, at the sight of all the pus running out of my tonsil folds. The GP made out I was imagining all these and refused any treatment. All treatment eventually obtained at Out of Hours clinics. A different time, I was coughing as you describe and couldn't speak without going into coughing fits. Phoned 111, DH had to take over the call and call handler told him to get me to the hospital NOW. Do not underestimate how bad this can get.