Have you been given antibiotics by your doctor to treat a chest infection?
A lower respiratory chest infection which can in some cases be called pneumonia can be a serious condition that takes weeks or months to recover from.
Once you start taking antibiotics, your symptoms should begin to improve. Recovery times vary a lot from person to person and depend on your general health, age and how severe your chest infection is. If you are diagnosed with a chest infection and your symptoms don’t improve in 48 hours, or if they get any worse, contact your doctor or 999/111 out of hours.
If there is blood in your phlegm, you are coughing for more than 6 weeks from the start of antibiotics or you are losing weight unintentionally please contact your doctor urgently.
It’s impossible to say exactly how quickly you’ll recover, but here’s an idea of what to expect:
