A chest X-ray is not always necessary for a pneumonia diagnosis. Any doctor worth his salt can hear pneumonia with a stethoscope if it’s at a certain stage. An X-ray can confirm it.
Exactly. In February, I went to the doctor with a chronic dry cough and fatigue. I thought I might have pneumonia. After 30 seconds or so of prodding with the stethoscope the doctor said, “ the good news is you don’t have pneumonia ; you have bronchitis.”
***Any doctor worth his salt can hear pneumonia with a stethoscope if it’s at a certain stage. An X-ray can confirm it.***
Any doctor worth his salt is going to do a cxr along with labs to confirm.
And technically, you don’t necessarily “hear” pneumonia. Normally you would hear little to no breath sounds in the lower lobe/lobes with someone who had pneumonia, especially if your ill enough you’re fainting. But hearing little to no breath sounds could also indicate blood clots or even cancer.
Not to mention my sister had one of those “worth his salt” Dr’s who kept diagnosing her with pneumonia. He wouldn’t do a cxr. After about the 4th time in a year of getting “pneumonia” he finally sent her to a pulmonologist, still without having done any tests. Her pulmonologist did cxr’s and a ct scan only to find out she didn’t have pneumonia, she had pulmonary fibrosis. Her pulmonologist all but said if her Dr had done these tests on her sooner they might have been able to catch it earlier. She died last June.