How is bronchitis diagnosed?

How is bronchitis diagnosed?

Richard Sheldon (Medical Advisor to the CA State Respiratory Care Board) gives expert video advice on: How is bronchitis usually treated?; Should I take antibiotics for bronchitis?; What is the difference between bronchitis and pneumonia? and more...

Chronic bronchitis is diagnosed as a temporal thing, in other words, three consecutive months out of two consecutive years you're coughing up material. Acute bronchitis is diagnosed mainly by the history and physical findings listening to the lungs, hearing wheezing, etcetera. It is different from pneumonia, which we can talk about at another point. But chronic bronchitis is usually the patient saying they have a sudden onset of cough that produces phlegm; nasty looking, pussy looking maybe yellow or green material. Sometimes they cough so hard that they may have a little bit of blood mixed into their phlegm that they cough up.