Meat is one of the main components of the diet of most people, which provides the body with protein and many trace elements, including iron, as well as a number of vitamins. From meat, you can cook a large number of varied and delicious dishes, including for diet food. Nevertheless, poor-quality meat is a serious health hazard, since it can cause poisoning or, as they say in medicine, foodborne toxicosis. At the first symptoms of meat poisoning, you need to contact specialists for help.
How meat poisoning occurs
Provoke meat poisoning can:
- violation of sanitary standards during cutting;
- slaughter of sick animals;
- violation of storage or transportation rules;
- eating meat dishes that have not undergone the necessary heat treatment.
Meat is a breeding ground for many pathogens. Once on its surface, they multiply rapidly, penetrate into the deeper layers, producing dangerous toxins. If the meat is not properly processed at high temperature, then pathogenic bacteria are highly likely to enter the body with food. The toxic elements of the life of microbes cause inflammatory processes in the mucous membranes of the intestines and stomach, as a result of which the absorption of water and nutrients is disrupted by the villi of the small intestine. This underlies the development of gastroenteric syndrome. In case of meat poisoning, intoxication syndrome is also expressed, the occurrence of which is associated with the ingress of bacterial toxin into the blood stream.
Botulism
A somewhat different pathogenesis is poisoning, which occurred from meat infected with botulism clostridia. Such microbes produce a strong poison that spreads throughout the body, penetrating into the nerve synapses and blocking their activity. The symptom of meat poisoning in this case is muscle paralysis, including those that regulate respiratory movements. This causes the most serious consequences.
Symptoms of meat poisoning
The incubation time during the development of foodborne toxicosis caused by the consumption of meat infected with staphylococcus or salmonella does not exceed two days. The more pathogens enter the digestive system, the shorter this period will be and the brighter the clinical picture will be.
The main symptoms of meat poisoning in humans are:
- heaviness in the epigastrium;
- nausea;
- cramping abdominal pain;
- vomiting
- repeated and profuse diarrhea;
- tachycardia;
- increase in body temperature;
- lowering blood pressure;
- headache and muscle pain;
- weakness.
When eating smoked, dried or low-quality canned meat, botulism can occur. The initial signs of this dangerous are the same symptoms, including diarrhea during food poisoning, only later on the patient weakness quickly builds up, breathing becomes superficial. If treatment is not started urgently, death may occur due to respiratory paralysis.
Raw meat
Many exotic dishes are prepared on the basis of raw or semi-raw meat. For example, well-known dishes of meat with blood can cause severe poisoning, which ends with the hospitalization of people in the hospital. Nevertheless, there are people who really like these dishes, and it is they who most often become victims of botulism. The signs of raw meat poisoning are identical to those inherent in all food poisoning. What happens in this case?
Severe nausea, diarrhea, vomiting and fever are observed. In case of poisoning with raw meat, this symptomatology develops many times faster in a person than in the case of cooked meat, since in the absence of heat treatment this product contains an extremely high content of pathogenic microbes.
Boiled product
The answer to the question of whether it is possible to poison boiled meat is rather complicated, since it all depends on when to use the product - immediately after cooking or after a certain time. Medicine recommends that any products be consumed only fresh, but if the dish is stored in the refrigerator, then it must be consumed within two days. After this time, the food becomes unusable, as for boiled meat. Thus, they can be poisoned if the meat was cooked several days ago, and pathogenic bacteria have already settled in it.
Rotten meat poisoning
Poisoning with such meat is quite difficult for the simple reason that such a product is easily recognized by a strong unpleasant odor. Naturally, such meat will not cause appetite, but today there are more frequent cases of poor quality products on the shelves. Unscrupulous businessmen soak rotten meat in special solutions, including potassium permanganate, after which it takes on a fresh look and pleasant color. In such a situation, poisoning with rotten meat is not difficult.
First aid - what to do?
In case of meat poisoning, first aid should be to cleanse the body of the harmful microbes that provoked this disease, as well as the toxins produced by them. The first thing to do is rinse your stomach. At home, this is done in the easiest way. The patient drinks several glasses of water, then, due to irritation of the root of the tongue, causes vomiting. A similar procedure should be carried out several times until all the food in the stomach comes out. It is strictly forbidden to conduct an independent gastric lavage in children and patients in an unconscious state.
Medicines
After the procedure, it is necessary to take absorbing medications that absorb toxins and remove them naturally. As a medicine for food poisoning, you can use absorbents - activated charcoal or Enterosgel, Filtrum STI. To significantly reduce the manifestations of intoxication and to prevent the possible development of dehydration, as well as the resulting electrolyte imbalance, helps to drink plenty of water. You can’t drink plenty of fluids right away, as this will provoke vomiting. It is better to give the patient a Regidron solution every 10 minutes in small sips.
When do you need the help of doctors?
Even if the symptoms of meat poisoning seem insignificant at first glance, it is advisable to consult a doctor. And it is especially important to do this in the following situations:
- if the poisoning has occurred in a child;
- signs of intoxication persist for more than two days;
- sharp muscle weakness and respiratory processes are observed;
- decreased diuresis (urine output);
- significantly decreased blood pressure.
Treatment methods
Therapeutic measures and their volume in case of meat poisoning directly depend on the type of pathogen that provoked it. For example, in salmonellosis, specialists prescribe antibacterial drugs and carry out infusion treatment.
Medicines that are used in cases of food poisoning, including meat, are divided into three groups, depending on the direction of their action and the purpose of administration:
- anti-emetics (used after cleansing the stomach from contents): “Cerucal”;
- medicines for the elimination of toxins (absorbents): activated carbon, Smecta, Enterosgel, Lactofiltrum, etc .;
- means for normalizing the water-electrolyte balance: "Regidron", other saline solutions;
- symptomatic drugs for food poisoning: digestive enzymes, painkillers (No-shpa, Citramon) and antipyretic drugs (Nurofen, Paracetomol).
With botulism, it is necessary to start the introduction of anti-botulinum serum into the blood of the patient, which neutralizes botulinum toxin. With the development of severe respiratory failure, it is necessary to transfer the patient to artificial respiration, so these patients are usually hospitalized in the intensive care unit.
Poisoning prevention
In order not to be poisoned by meat and meat products, it is necessary to adhere to some rules for choosing meat on the shelves of the store, its subsequent preparation and storage.
Significantly reduce the likelihood of meat poisoning will help the following recommendations:
- The product must be purchased in large chain stores, where it passes the appropriate sanitary inspection. It can also be purchased on the market, provided that the seller has a health record and a veterinary certificate for the products being sold.
- Before you buy meat, you need to carefully examine it, paying particular attention to its smell and color. If the product looks suspicious, has a smell uncharacteristic for fresh meat, you must refuse to purchase it.
- Store the goods at home should be in the freezer, and in finished form - in the refrigerator, in a sealed container for no longer than two days.
- Before eating, it is necessary to conduct heat treatment.
- You can not eat canned meat in swollen jars.
As for meat dishes, which are sold ready-made, in the culinary departments of shops or are eaten in cafes, in this case, you also need to carefully study their smell and taste. However, a spoiled product can not always be recognized by such signs, most often meat sandwiches or meatballs look very appetizing. Doctors recommend cooking it yourself and not buying ready-made meals to prevent meat poisoning. If lunch or dinner takes place in a cafe, you need to visit only verified places, as well as those that have a good reputation. Various bistros and fast foods should be avoided.
Complications
If the symptoms of meat poisoning were not noticed in time, then with the development of toxicoinfection can occur in severe form, which in most cases is observed in children and weakened people, some complications may occur. The most common among them are:
- Infectious toxic shock is a dangerous complication that poses a life threat to the victim. Such a condition develops when a large number of various bacterial toxins are absorbed into the bloodstream, which contribute to a significant decrease in blood pressure indicators, sometimes up to collapse. Also, when this pathology occurs, a significant violation of blood coagulation develops in the form of intravascular disseminated coagulation syndrome with the formation of small blood clots in all vessels.
- Sepsis (better known as blood poisoning). This complication develops most often in weakened people and is characterized by the penetration of pathogenic bacteria from the digestive system into the bloodstream, their subsequent spread throughout the body and settling in the internal organs. Moreover, in most cases, an abscess of the liver develops when a cavity filled with purulent contents forms in this organ.
- Hypovolemia, which is a pronounced decrease in the amount of mineral salts and fluids in the body. In this case, convulsions develop, and disorders in the functioning of the organs of the cardiovascular and nervous systems, and renal failure.
- Dysbacteriosis, which, as a rule, acts as a late complication of meat poisoning and other food poisoning, and occurs with a disturbance in the balance of normal microflora in the intestine and a predominance of representatives.