Coughing
Narrator:
Have a cough you just can't shake? Listen to what happened to Nancy O'Connor.
Nancy O'Connor:
I was coughing constantly. The kids would just say, "Oh, that's just Mrs. O'Connor, she coughs all the time".
Narrator:
The 67-year-old says she was frustrated because doctors couldn't nail down the cause.
Nancy O'Connor:
I've had two bronchial scopes and CAT scans and xrays, I mean almost too many to tell you.
Narrator:
Then finally a surprising diagnosis – Nancy had an infection in her lungs from non-tuberculosis mycobacteria or N-T-M.
Nancy O'Connor:
He said that it came from shower vapors. And I'm thinking shower vapors?
Turn on shower
Narrator:
The N-T-M organism grows in soil and is carried by water.
John Hansen-Flaschen, M.D.:
An attractive, current theory is that people breathe a fine mist in their shower stalls of municipal water containing small amounts of this bacteria.
Narrator:
The infection shows up on an x-ray as patches of pneumonia.
John Hansen-Flaschen, M.D.:
We're imagining that's where the original seed of a water droplet landed and took hold.
Narrator:
In the past, doctors only saw the disease in cigarette smokers and miners who inhaled silica.
Michael Iseman, M.D.:
It is now a disease largely of women. And not only that, but predominantly among Caucasian women.
Narrator:
And they're mostly non-smokers, like Nancy. She had to take daily doses of three antibiotics for two years to get rid of the infection.
John Hansen-Flaschen, M.D.:
The reason it's so hard to treat is that the bacteria is generally highly resistant to the antibiotics that we have available today.
Shower
Narrator:
Water above 170 degrees can kill the bacteria. But you can't shower in water that hot without getting burned. So how do you prevent the infection?
John Hansen-Flaschen, M.D.:
One possibility, if the research confirms our theories, would be to have our home water heaters heat the incoming water to 170 degrees for 2-3 minutes,
then cool it down to 125 degrees in a holding bin, so that what comes out of the pipe can't be more than 125 degrees or so.
Narrator:
For now, you can switch to baths or try a shower head with a rain-like spray instead of a mist.
John Hansen-Flaschen, M.D.:
It's possible that would be helpful, we don't know.
Narrator:
More importantly, if you have a stubborn cough with phlegm and feel zapped of your energy, see a doctor.
Nancy O'Connor:
If you've got something like that, that's just a cough or cold that just keeps lingering on, it doesn't hurt to have it checked out.
shower
Narrator:
There could be a nasty bacteria lurking in the mist. For WebMD, I'm Damon Meharg.
