Medical expert weighs in on Hillary Clinton's pneumonia diagnosis

Politicians are known to stumble over their words on the campaign trail, but in this case, Hillary Clinton took a literal tumble while leaving a 9/11 memorial event.

The diagnosis was pneumonia.

"Pneumonia is an infection of the lungs and people get it by catching it from other people," Dr. Gary Bluestone, Chief Physician of Infectious Diseases at Kaiser Permanente Baldwin Park, said.

Bluestone gave FOX11 an objective explanation about the sickness that affects two million American's each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

Bluestone said with Clinton's campaign schedule, anyone would be susceptible to catching an pneumonia.

"If you can imagine Hillary is in coughing distance of thousands of people during her campaign and it's so easy to pick up a virus in that kind of environment," Bluestone said.

Clinton emerged from her daughter's apartment hours after the stumble to tell crowds, she was feeling better, but it was later that day her doctor revealed she had pneumonia.

Bluestone said that's not uncommon since it's often difficult to diagnose.

"The majority of patients really have non- specific symptoms something that just doesn't feel right," Bluestone said. "They may or may not have a fever, cough, some people think they're allergies are kicking in."

And that's apparently what Clinton thought her pneumonia was. Clinton blamed a coughing episode in Cleveland last week on her allergies.

Now doctors have ordered the 68-year-old to get some rest, but given her age the recovery could be slower.

We don't know what kind of pneumonia Hillary Clinton has, but doctors at Kaiser advise all patients over age 65 to be vaccinated against the most common form of pneumonia which can be dangerous for the elderly.

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