Symptoms, causes and treatment of purulent meningitis in adults and newborns

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

Bacteria cause this type of disease (there is also serous meningitis, which is caused by viruses, some bacteria, fungi). They can enter the shell in various ways:

1. Airborne. So the bacteria that cause the primary purulent meningitis penetrate: meningococcus, hemophilic bacillus, less often - pneumococcus. These microbes “fly” from a healthy carrier or a sick person (he is not necessarily ill with meningitis), in which they lived on the mucous membrane of the nasopharynx and oropharynx. Then they cause inflammation of the nasopharynx of the new “host”, enter the lymph and spread to the membrane of the brain with it. With such diseases, a person may not feel a sore throat for a short time, a runny nose, a slight temperature, then the symptoms of meningitis proper appear.

2. Contact. This means that the brain membrane, before it was 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 the disease). This can be with mastoiditis, sinusitis, purulent otitis media, frontal, osteomyelitis of the bones of the skull or penetrating wound in this area.

3. With blood flow. When blood is infected, when bacteria enter the blood from the outbreak in the lungs, cranial cavity, and other places. Even an untreated abscess on the buttock can cause purulent meningitis.

Symptoms of the disease

In the beginning, usually there are either catarrhal symptoms or symptoms indicating that there is purulent otitis media, mastoiditis, sinusitis, osteomyelitis or phlegmon under the lower jaw. Then signs of purulent meningitis develop directly:

- high body temperature;

- severe headache;

- lethargy, drowsiness;

- a person tries to lie down and get up as little as possible;

- there may be cramps;

- Inadequacy or oppression of consciousness, which develops after a person for some time felt a headache 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 to be picked up, bulging fontanel, which appear against a background of elevated body temperature.

A rash that does not disappear and does not fade when you stretch the skin under it 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 intense mental work (for example, attempts to read or build a pyramid);

- loss of hearing or vision;

- the slower mental development of the child: it becomes more difficult for him to memorize the material, he cannot always repeat some actions for the educator or parent the first time;

- mental disorders.