Everyone has heard that there is such a disease as meningitis. Some associate its appearance purely with hypothermia (especially the head) or with infection by airborne droplets. Is it so? How you can get sick, consider below.
Types of meningitis
The disease can be caused by bacteria, viruses, rarely - protozoa. It is possible to establish an accurate diagnosis and identify the microbe that caused the disease only with the help of a lumbar puncture. Moreover, within an hour after taking it, it will presumably be known whether the meningitis is purulent or serous.
Purulent process is caused in 99% of cases by bacteria; if serous meningitis, symptoms in children may occur due to the penetration into the body, and then on the brain membrane of some specific bacteria, a huge amount of viruses, fungi.
Mechanism of getting the virus into the body
Viruses that cause serous meningitis (symptoms in children are usually severe) enter the body in a variety of ways. Sometimes this process occurs after a short time, immediately after minormanifestations of SARS. In some cases, meningitis can be a complication of other viral diseases (usually measles, chickenpox, rubella).
Viruses enter the body in the following ways:
- airborne: herpes viruses, cytomegalovirus, Epstein-Barr virus, rubella, measles, mumps, chicken pox, enteroviruses, SARS group;
- sexually: herpes simplex virus;
- through the placenta or at birth: herpes simplex virus;
- when eating insufficiently thermally processed foods and through dirty hands: enteroviruses;
- when the contents of the bubbles get on the wounds on the skin: herpes simplex viruses.
Serous meningitis can be caused by specific bacteria. They also enter the body in various ways: for example, Mycobacterium tuberculosis enters by airborne droplets, and leptospira - from infected mouse, rat feces through wounds on the skin.
Serous meningitis: symptoms in children
After infection, some time passes (usually about a week), then symptoms of a viral disease appear:
- cough, runny nose, conjunctivitis, sore throat and sore throat - if the disease is caused by one of the enteroviruses or a microbe from the SARS group;
- increased body temperature - when hit by any of the viruses;
- rash - typical for chickenpox, herpes simplex, shingles, measles, rubella, only in each case the elements of the rash will be different;
- sore throat, an increase in a large number of lymph nodes - whenEpstein-Barr virus or cytomegalovirus.
If serous meningitis is caused by leptospira or tubercle bacillus, there will be symptoms of these diseases first. Then, after a few days, if the virus has overcome the protection of the brain, serous meningitis develops. Symptoms in children appear as follows:
- body temperature rises to higher levels, it becomes difficult to bring it down;
- the head starts to hurt a lot: this pain often does not have a specific localization, it gets worse when sitting and standing (lying easier), as well as with loud sounds and bright light;
- nausea and vomiting;
- weakness, drowsiness up to the state when it becomes impossible to wake the child;
- there may be convulsions with loss of consciousness (this is typical for herpetic meningitis, which is very life threatening);
- inadequacy, delusions, hallucinations;
- enteroviral meningitis is characterized by a reddish punctate rash all over the body.
If meningitis has developed in a very young child, there is a bulging of a large fontanel, monotonous crying, the baby resists being picked up.
Diagnosis of meningitis
Diagnosis can only be made by the results of a lumbar puncture. This is not such a dangerous manipulation, it does not need to pierce the spinal cord at all. But its benefits are undeniable:
- after it becomes easier, as the pressure of the cerebrospinal fluid decreases;
- only on the basis of this analysis it is possible to distinguish viral meningitis from purulent immediately, and later -get a complete result of a bacteriological or virological study, thanks to which it will be clear what the causative agent of the disease is called and how it can be killed;
- determine the initial therapy, which can be selected based on a comparison of the severity of the condition and the level of inflammation, which is determined in the cerebrospinal fluid.
How to protect yourself from meningitis?
- follow the rules of personal hygiene;
- instill in the child the understanding that it is not necessary to communicate with a coughing or sneezing person;
- make it a habit for adults in the family to wear a mask when there are signs of a cold;
- use only boiled or bottled water, boiled milk;
- it is advisable to be examined for the TORCH group before pregnancy, and during it in every possible way to protect yourself from colds, dress according to the weather, wash your hands before eating and after traveling in transport.
There is currently no vaccine against serous meningitis.
