The Killer Behind Killer Pneumonia: Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome

More than 36,000 people die in the U.S. each year from flu; perhaps twice that many die of pneumonia. Yet, in reality, pneumonia itself is not the killer it once was. Advances in medicine now make it possible for many to successfully be treated and recover from this serious respiratory condition without hospitalization.

Instead, when we hear today that someone has died from pneumonia, it is often a case of complications from pneumonia. One of the most deadly is Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome, or ARDS, a little heard-about and often fatal lung infection that affects about 150,000 Americans each year. While ARDS is still not fully understood, its early diagnosis and immediate treatment is vital to survival.

Yet, even with proper diagnosis and treatment, the mortality rate runs between 40 and 70% and is considered a catastrophic illness which can leave the fortunate who do recover to cope with tens or hundreds of thousands in hospital bills many insurance companies will not pay, debilitating symptoms that can last throughout the rest of a patient's life, and at serious risk for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

What some find most terrifying about ARDS is how quickly it can fell a person. ARDS acts by literally starving the body of oxygen. In just hours, a patient can go from the symptoms of a bad cold or other infection to a state where bodily organs begin to die from oxygen deprivation. Exactly what triggers this "super bug", as some doctors call it, is not entirely clear. But pneumonia or some other form of infection is often present when ARDS rears its ugly head.

I'm one of the lucky ones. A pretty healthy person who had never been in the hospital except to have my tonsils removed as a child, I was at my desk working just a few hours before a nurse was rushing me into a treatment room at the nearest hospital.

In my case, I spent about a week with a sense of body heaviness and a severe pain in my side. I know enough of the signs of a heart attack that I was unconcerned; my pulse and blood pressure were good. Since I've had pneumonia twice before, I dismissed pneumonia as a possibility because this did not seem like any thing like that.