Symptoms
The symptoms are hoarseness, dry metallic cough, which may become very severe and teasing. The onset is sudden with a marked tendency to cough, especially during the night. The voice often is entirely lost and the larynx becomes sore and painful. There is dyspnea and the respirations are short and shallow.
In some cases which develop more slowly there will be coryza for a day or two preceding the severe attack, or the laryngeal symptoms may precede the acute symptoms. The onset, however, may be very rapid and the most severe symptoms be present within a very few hours after the manifestation of the first symptom. In the well developed, case the cough is dry, metallic, barking and stridulus. The inspiration is labored. The dyspnea is severe, occurring in paroxysms during the night. There is temperature, rapid pulse and increased respiration. If the inflammation extends down into the bronchi it will result in bronchopneumonia. Laryngeal obstruction may occur often and prove very severe.
It is sometimes very difficult and in some cases impossible to distinguish acute catarrhal laryngitis from membranous laryngitis or laryngeal diphtheria. This is not so important to the chiropractor, for if adjustments are given soon enough results will be obtained before positive diagnostic symptoms have time to develop. However, it is well to be thoroughly informed on the difference in the symptoms since the chiropractor is sometimes not called in until the condition is well under way. At the onset the two conditions are very much alike, which is very reasonable to the chiropractor, since the only difference is in degree of severity, due to a different combination, and a difference in degree of the functions involved resulting from the same combination o£ subluxations. In the catarrhal condition the temperature is usually greater than in the membranous form. The dyspnea in catarrhal laryngitis is usually paroxysmal; it is less exaggerated during the day but worse at night, while the membranous type is constant and rapidly becomes more exaggerated. The dyspnea occurs on both inspiration and expiration, while in the catarrhal form it occurs only on inspiration. If the culture shows Klebs-Loeffler bacilli it is considered laryngeal diphtheria.