Legionnaires' Disease Lawyer

While the past few posts have highlighted various ongoing news stories relating to Legionnaires’ disease, this post seeks to take a step back and to review some basic information and insight on Legionnaires’ disease. With that in mind, this post will start off by reviewing some of the basic signs and symptoms of Legionnaires’ disease and in addition, how one can have it diagnosed.

Essentially when thinking of Legionnaires’ disease, it is important to remember that it is similar to various other forms of pneumonia (i.e. lung infections). As such, some common symptoms an individual might encounter if they have contracted Legionnaire’s disease would include a cough, shortness of breath, a fever, general muscle aches and headaches. While these symptoms tend to be the most common when an individual may have been exposed to Legionella bacteria and gotten Legionnaires’ disease, other symptoms include diarrhea, nausea, and even confusion.

It is important to remember, however, that all these various symptoms will usually begin around two to ten days after being exposed to Legionella bacteria but can certainly take longer, including around two weeks. As such, if symptoms become prevalent, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention informs individuals to see a doctor right away. There, medical professionals and clinicians have a few methods for diagnosing Legionnaires’ disease. One method would be to conduct a chest x-ray and thus confirm its presence however in order to determine if the cause of Legionnaires’ disease was the exposure of the patient to Legionella bacteria, two particular methods tend to come up frequently; a urine test, i.e. urinalysis, or a laboratory test which involves taking a sample of phlegm from the lung to be tested.

Over the next few weeks, this blog will seek to review other bits of basic information on Legionella bacteria and Legionnaires’ disease as a whole however as a start, this post is glad to at least provide some of the basics on the signs and symptoms of Legionnaires’ disease and furthermore, how one may be able to have it diagnosed.

Jules Zacher is an attorney in Philadelphia who has tried Legionnaires’ disease cases across the U.S.  Please visit LegionnaireLawyer.com again for updates.