My husband has pneumonia (Atypical, it's in both lungs we know that much), but the Doctor a general physician, we went to on Tues (I am sick too but was told I do not have pneumonia and I do not know what I have),and the Dr then gaveus both antibiotics (Doxcycycline) and a steroid, not a shot. Now mind you my husband is graduating on Saturday, tomorrow and yet this dr didn't give him any shots, just the pills Rx, and said he should be completely better by Thurs. Well he isn't. In fact, he only had a marked improvement of about 15% and he feels he needs more antibiotcs to really clear up. We were told to call back (ha year right like they answer their phones) on Thurs if we were not both better. We werent neither one of us, so I call and get the run around. Dr didn't even write in that he had pneumonia in our charts/files so the nurse wasn't sure if she bleieved me about our condition. Dr according to her, said he wanted to call in Allegra for me(which has never worked for my sinues/nasal conditions I have chronically yet!) and a cough medicine for him even though my husband's cough has imroved on it's own from OTC Robitussin. We were told to take that as well, but no instructions on if we should keep taking it along with the new Rx's. Well we didn't get them filled b/c we cannot keep spending $$ (plus the 200$ just for the visit) just to see if the pills would work or not--the nurse told me to just take 1 allegra and id know by today if it worked or not. ***? So we didn't do it, but I am curious as to how the Dr seems to think antibiotics will kill the pneumonia---how does he know it was caught bacterailly? He seemed to think because I got sick the day before my husband that he caught it from me, yet I do not have it as my lungs were clear (no X Ray for me just him listening to my lungs), but from the reading up on it I've done, if he does in fact have atypical pneumonia the symptoms are quite different than what he has....he has most of them but his cough was not dry until last night, he was able to produce sputum on his own. Some has blood in it, at least what comes from his nose. But, if he were to have caught the viral kind of pneumonia, assuming that is how he got it, then antibiotics wouldn't work in that would it?? It is just confusing because he didn't say what kind of pneumonia (bacterial, flu virus or what) he has and so I am thinking because we aren't sure what kind of pneumonia he has, that this is why the meds he gave us aren't working. And when my husbands mom had it long time ago, she said it took her a good 3 weeks to get over it and an entire week for the antibiotics to kick in....yet this Dr thought we'd be better by Thursday??