Acute laryngitis or acute laryngitis is a fairly common condition. The main cause of the disease is a virus. Understanding the disease will help you treat it faster.
Let’s learn about acute laryngitis through the following article.
What is acute laryngitis?
Acute laryngitis is a short-term (less than 3 weeks) inflammation of the larynx lining. If the inflammation lasts more than 3 weeks, it is considered chronic.
There are many causes of this condition and depending on each cause, there will be different symptoms of acute laryngitis.
Acute laryngitis can occur in anyone, but is more common in children.
What are the symptoms of acute laryngitis?
Typical symptoms of laryngitis are:
- Hoarse voice, unclear sentences
- Fever (during the first few days of infection)
- Sore throat
- Clear your throat often
- Cough
These signs of laryngitis often appear suddenly and get worse over about 3 days. After 3 weeks, with proper treatment such as drinking plenty of fluids and resting the larynx, symptoms such as cough and hoarseness often subside.
Although acute laryngitis will usually go away without treatment, if you have the following symptoms you should see your doctor:
- Having problems swallowing
- Hemoptisi
- Shortness of breath
- Fever of 39°C continuously, not decreasing
- Respiratory problems
These are signs that may be related to epiglottitis (inflammation of the epiglottis), a dangerous condition that can be life-threatening in both adults and children.
In children, symptoms of acute laryngitis are similar to those in adults. If the disease occurs in children under 5 years old, it is often called croup . The illness usually clears up in 5-7 days and requires medical attention if symptoms of infection do not improve within this time period. Antibiotics are not used to treat croup because it is caused by a viral infection.
What is the cause of acute laryngitis?
There are many causes of acute laryngitis, the most common of which are flu or cold viruses .
Other possible causes of the disease include:
- Using your voice too much (like lecturing, shouting, etc.)
- Gastric reflux causes irritation of the laryngeal mucosa
- Injury to the larynx
Hoarseness is caused by swelling and inflammation of the larynx, making it difficult for air to pass through and creating a different voice than normal.
Treatment of acute laryngitis
For acute laryngitis without symptoms of difficulty breathing, the doctor will prescribe:
- Let the larynx rest, don’t talk too much and avoid the cold
- Antibiotics, anti-inflammatory drugs, antihistamine H1, expectorant, cough suppressant…
- Local treatment with corticosteroids, anti-inflammatory enzymes, essential oils…
- Improve resistance, supplement nutrition and electrolytes.
Is acute laryngitis dangerous?
Acute laryngitis in adults is usually not dangerous and can recover well, but children need to be closely monitored because the disease can easily cause difficulty breathing and affect their lives.
If not treated properly, laryngitis can progress to bronchitis and pneumonia , but this is rare.
Prevention of acute laryngitis
Some of the following methods can help you prevent disease such as:
- Regularly gargle with warm salt water: Warm salt water has antibacterial and anti-inflammatory effects that improve neck pain. You can do this by dissolving ¼ – ½ teaspoon of table salt in 200ml of warm water, then gargle and spit out. If you don’t have time, you can also use physiological saline bought at the pharmacy.
- Keep your body warm: During the changing seasons or when it’s cold, you need to keep your body warm, especially the neck area to avoid catching a cold.
- Eat scientifically: A scientific, nutritious diet not only helps prevent laryngitis but also many other diseases. You need to make sure your meals contain all 5 food groups and avoid eating foods that easily irritate the throat such as sour, spicy, and hot foods.
- Don’t talk too much: one of the causes of laryngitis is shouting and talking too much for a long time. Therefore, to prevent this condition, you should limit shouting and talking. In addition, if your job requires you to use your voice a lot every day, you can use a humidifier in the room to limit dry throat.
