Concerned parents are warning of the increasing number of cases of ‘walking pneumonia’ which doctors are struggling to diagnose

Dozens of parents are signing up online to warn others about a nasty infection called “walking pneumonia” that doctors are having a hard time spotting.

Among them is a mother from Georgia, who revealed that her young daughter was rushed to the emergency room and intubated after her cough due to the illness did not subside.

“Mycoplasma pneumonia (walking) is no joke,” she said online. ‘This came without warning! She just saw her pediatrician 24 hours beforehand.’

‘Pneumonia’ is a bacterial infection that can cause excessive coughing but does not normally prevent patients from carrying out their daily tasks.

However, in recent years it has led to more children being hospitalized, which experts say may be related to Covid lockdowns blocking children’s exposure to good germs and consequently weakening their immune systems.

At the same time, parents say doctors struggle to diagnose the condition in time, often writing it off as a viral infection, cold or flu, which delays timely treatment of children.

Parents are also urging others to ensure their children have an X-ray, which can reveal ‘white spots’ on the lungs, leading to a diagnosis of pneumonia.

These parents included mother-of-two Ashley Hudson in California, revealing that she was initially told her 11-year-old son had a viral infection.

Mrs Wilkinson said her son was diagnosed via an X-ray after suffering from a cough for a week

Dr. Tibisi Villalobos of Pennsylvania warned, “We are seeing more severe disease. We see children who have fevers for days, cough, don’t feel well and end up in hospital, even in intensive care, where they need oxygen and critical care.’

Ms Hudson revealed on TikTok that her 11-year-old was so ill he was ‘coughing things up’ and ‘could barely keep his eyes open’ after being struck down by the disease and suffering from a cough and 103F fever.

She took him in for a check-up for his cough and flu-like symptoms about two weeks ago, and was told by doctors that he had a viral infection and was sent home with instructions to take Tylenol to ease the illness.

But five days later, her son took a sudden turn for the worse and became “extremely ill.”

“He gets a fever of 103F, he’s extremely sick, he can barely keep his eyes open, he has the worst migraines and he’s like, ‘I need to sleep.’ He had no appetite, he was coughing things up,” she said.

“(His cough)… it doesn’t sound like he’s wheezing or anything like that, it sounds more like congestion, a cold, a viral infection, and then with the (other symptoms).”

She rushed him back to his pediatrician, where a second assessment was performed and the doctors also ordered an X-ray of his lungs.

The mother was told she would get the results in about an hour, but five minutes later she received a call from their doctor confirming the diagnosis of pneumonia.

Alma Geddes, center, is pictured with her brothers as she remains in a Baltimore hospital where she was being treated for Mycoplasma pneumonia

The boy has now been given antibiotics to combat the infection. But Mrs Hudson says her one-year-old now appears to be unwell.

Reports are coming in from across the US of increasing cases of ‘walking pneumonia’ caused by the bacterium Mycoplasma pneumoniae.

Last week, health officials in parts of Wisconsin and Illinois said they were seeing an increase among children. Subsequently, doctors in Fort Worth, Texas and Washington DC followed suit.

And over the weekend, there were also reports of increases from Lehigh County in Pennsylvania and Houston, Texas.

But at the same time, parents report that doctors repeatedly miss the infection or misdiagnose the disease.

In another case, a Texas mother of two revealed how her 10-year-old was also diagnosed with running pneumonia – but only after a visit to the ER.

Stephanie, who lives in San Antonio, said her son had been sick and coughing for about two weeks when she took him to the emergency room.

The doctors there couldn’t diagnose his illness, but then she made an appointment with a pediatrician who said he had “walking pneumonia.”

Alma, three, was one of several children doctors at Greater Baltimore Medical Center have seen with pneumonia so far this year

she said: ‘Lately my son’s cough started as a minor cough, but it kept getting worse. He was sleepy, you could tell, he was just uncomfortable.

‘My 10 year old finally sees his pediatrician, he goes for his visit and he is diagnosed with “walking pneumonia.” Apparently these pediatricians and physicians see a lot of cases.”

The boy has probably now been prescribed antibiotics to combat the infection, but this has not been confirmed.

In its alert last week, the CDC warned that the number of cases of children with “walking pneumonia” admitted to emergency rooms was rising — an unusual trend because “M. pneumoniae has not historically been recognized as one of the leading causes of pneumonia in this age group.”

It said that from March to October, the proportion of children aged two to four years old discharged with the disease rose from one to 7.4 percent.

And among those ages five to 17, the CDC said the proportion rose from 3.6 to 7.4 percent over the same period.

Mother of three Whitney Wilkinson was also among them to warn of pneumonia, revealing her son was diagnosed with the disease after battling a cough for a week.

Unlike viruses such as influenza and RSV that tend to strike in the colder months, outbreaks of mycoplasma infections can also occur at any time of the year in seemingly random clusters at schools and military bases.

The most prominent symptom is frequent coughing, but others include fever that fluctuates, along with lethargy and fatigue.

Although most patients have pulmonary congestion that can be detected with a stethoscope, not all of them do. Additional symptoms may include headache, sore throat and, less commonly, rash.