Air-bourne diseases of indoor sports

Recently the news reported that Peter Gade had mild bouts of pneumonia.

Quote the star," For now, Gade-Christensen does not want any matters on coaching to distract his focus on bridging the gap with the top two men’s singles players — Malaysia’s Lee Chong Wei and China’s Lin Dan.
He is pleasantly surprised with the way he had got back among the top five in the world ranking after getting off to a horrible start to the season. He had to skip several tournaments because of pneumonia and broken ribs.
But he showed that the fire in him was still burning intensely in reviving his career by nailing the Danish and French Open titles." 17 Dec 2008.

I suspect playing indoors, the air circulation is not that good and being in a confine space further adds to the problem.

As recently as 5 months ago, I went for some chest X-rays, my lungs showed some opaque objects in my lower right lungs. It looks like my alveolus was clotted by some material like mucus or fluid.

But my GP checked that I had no symptoms of Tuberculosis and most probably mild pneumonia. Phew! I am perfectly healthy in prime of life, with optimal BMI, blood pressure and resting heart rate. I have no bloodshot eyes, coughing blood or general malaise.

My physician relative told me," May be a Mycoplasma infection. I think unlikely to be TB as it would have hilar involvement; also usually the TB lesion will be in the upper lobes. Usually, there would be a need for a repeat CXR may be after a few weeks to confirm resolution. I take it that you don't have sweats/chills at night. No "clubbing of the fingernails"? Why the referral to a neurologist and not a respiratory specialist? ".

Puzzled, my GP referred me to a neurologist rather than a pulmonary specialist who sent me for multiple X-rays, front and lateral. Luckily the costly CT scan was ruled out since my 2nd X-rays showed improvements. About another month later, the opaque nodules somewhat clear.

As I recalled, I never smoked, drink about twice a month and exercise regularly.

About early January I recalled Singapore had a haze problem with forest fires from Sumatra. I jogged outdoors regularly and played badminton indoors. Who knows if those nasty pollutants got trapped in my alveolus?
The only thing I recalled was I had a mild cold one month before the chest x-ray. According to my specialist, it takes up to 2-3 months for the mucus to clear, surprisingly.

The only exposure I had was working indoors in an office environment and playing lots of badminton indoors in sports hall/courts. I suspect that was the exposure I had. I'm pretty hygienic as well but we all know in public places, sometimes the door handles/water tap etc can be contaminated by a person with lung diseases.

Well, that should not discourage me from playing badminton.