Meningitis is an inflammatory change that has occurred in the membranes covering the brain and spinal cord under the influence of infectious agents. The disease is life-threatening, subject to mandatory treatment in a hospital.
Purulent meningitis: causes
This type of disease is caused by bacteria (there is also serous meningitis, which is caused by viruses, some bacteria, fungi). They can enter the shell in various ways:
1. Airborne. This is how bacteria that cause primary purulent meningitis penetrate: meningococcus, Haemophilus influenzae, less often pneumococcus. These microbes “arrive” from a he althy carrier or a sick person (he is not necessarily sick with meningitis), in whom they lived on the mucous membrane of the nasopharynx and oropharynx. Further, they cause inflammation of the nasopharynx of the new "owner", enter the lymph and carry it to the meninges of the brain. With such diseases, a person may briefly feel a sore throat, a runny nose, a slight temperature, thensymptoms of meningitis appear.
2. Contact. This means that the shell of the brain, previously sterile, came into contact with something where there were bacteria that could cause purulent meningitis, in sufficient quantities for this (one or two bacteria will not cause illness). This can be with mastoiditis, sinusitis, purulent otitis media, frontal sinusitis, osteomyelitis of the bones of the skull, or a penetrating wound in this area.
3. With blood flow. When blood is infected, when a bacterium enters the blood from a focus in the lungs, cranial cavity, and other places. Even an untreated buttock abscess can cause purulent meningitis.
Symptoms of disease
In the beginning, there are usually either catarrhal phenomena, or symptoms indicating that there is purulent otitis media, mastoiditis, sinusitis, osteomyelitis or phlegmon under the lower jaw. Then signs of directly purulent meningitis develop:
- high body temperature;
- severe headache;
- lethargy, drowsiness;
- person tries to lie down and get up as little as possible;
- may have convulsions;
- inadequacy or depression of consciousness that develop after a person has felt a headache for some time against a background of high temperature;
- nausea, vomiting;
- photophobia;
- increased skin sensitivity;
- the inability to reach the sternum with the chin with the mouth closed.
In babies, the leading symptoms are drowsiness, monotonous crying, refusal to eat and be picked up, bulging of the fontanel, which appear against the background of increased body temperature.
A rash that does not fade or fade when the area of skin underneath is stretched can also be a symptom of meningitis in children and adults.
Purulent meningitis in newborns: consequences
Often after meningitis there are such consequences:
- headaches that occur mainly when the weather changes and intensified mental work (for example, attempts to read or build a pyramid);
- hearing or vision loss;
- slower mental development of the child: it becomes more difficult for him to memorize the material, he cannot always repeat some actions after the teacher or parent from the first time;
- mental disorders.
