Meningitis can affect everyone. And it’s not necessary for this to go without a hat in the winter, you can just chat with a patient with SARS or another viral disease or not treat purulent otitis media or sinusitis.
The most susceptible to the disease are children whose immunity is still just weak, and the body can not withstand many viruses. Also sick adults who ate food or drink from a common dish with a sick viral disease, simply talked to him or “swallowed” a virus that got into unboiled water or milk. In this case, an adult is more likely to get sick if his body is weakened by hypothermia, lack of sleep, constant stress or a prolonged illness. Basically, more often people with low immunity can feel for themselves how meningitis manifests itself.
The incubation period of the disease
The disease can be caused by a huge number of different microbes, each of which needs not only to enter the human body, but to overcome the protection from the barrier of the cells that protect the brain and its membranes. Therefore, it is impossible to say exactly after what time meningitis appears. On average, the incubation period of the disease is about a week (5-12 days).
How is meningitis manifested?
The disease begins acutely. In some cases, symptoms that indicate directly inflammation of the meninges are preceded by:
- conjunctivitis;
- a sore throat;
- the appearance of a runny nose;
- temperature rise;
- diarrhea;
- rash: for meningococcal meningitis , the appearance of dark spots is characteristic, which do not disappear when pressed with glass, for enterovirus - reddish small spots.
How does meningitis manifest later, what symptoms indicate this disease?
- Fever.
- Nausea.
- Vomiting, after which there is no relief.
- Headache. It:
- strong
- localized in the temporal-parietal or frontal region, less often in the entire head;
- amplified if you stand up, turn your head, and also after bright light or loud sounds;
- poorly removed by painkillers.
Later, the following symptoms appear:
- inadequacy, aggressiveness;
- cramps in which a person loses consciousness;
- drowsiness up to the fact that the patient cannot be awakened;
- strabismus.
A patient with meningitis is unlikely to sit at a computer or watch a movie. He eases his condition, lying on his side, with bent knees. Refuses to eat, sometimes drink. Asks to turn off the light and not turn on the sound. This is the picture of purulent meningitis.
And how is serous meningitis manifested ?
Its symptoms are the same, but usually they are less pronounced in intensity. For this meningitis, unless it is caused by herpes simplex viruses, cytomegalovirus or Epstein-Barr virus, the occurrence of strabismus, inappropriate behavior, convulsions is not characteristic. In the foreground with this disease is precisely a headache, accompanied by fever.
How is meningitis manifested in infants?
Kids cannot complain that they have a headache. They express it like this:
- long cry monotonously;
- refuse to go hand in hand;
- they lie with their heads thrown back and their legs pressed to their chest;
- refuse to eat and drink;
- there may be cramps;
- they burp and even tear up the "fountain";
- it is noticeable that the large fontanel (a supple place between the bones of the skull) is tense, pulsating and bulging.