If there is meningitis, is it very dangerous? What are the signs of this disease?

Meningitis is an acute disease that is not always contagious. The essence of the disease lies in inflammatory changes on the part of the membranes covering the brain and spinal cord. A person suffers from intoxication, severe headache, as well as phenomena associated with increased intracranial pressure and brain edema. If the inflammation affects not only the membranes, but also the substance of the brain, the disease can be called "encephalitis" or "meningoencephalitis".

Meningitis is a disease that threatens a person's life. In this case, an accurate diagnosis can be made only on the basis of lumbar puncture (lumbar puncture); Other methods of research in the period when the rescue of a person depends on how quickly he will apply for qualified help, are not informative. Some visible changes on a computer or magnetic resonance tomogram are visible only after 2 weeks from the onset of the disease; Ultrasound or X-ray examination is generally not capable of showing meningitis.

What are the types of meningitis?

By the type of pathogen that the disease provoked, acute meningitis can be bacterial, viral, fungal or caused by protozoa. By the nature of inflammatory changes in the cerebrospinal fluid - serous and purulent. And the cause of purulent meningitis in almost 100% of cases - a bacterium that can penetrate through the protective cell barriers that protect the brain. Serous meningitis can also be caused by viruses (their very large number, including the viruses of chicken pox, rubella and measles), and some bacteria (leptospira, Koch's stick), and fungi.

The result of the analysis on what exactly the microbe caused the disease in the case of purulent meningitis is obtained after 3-5 days by the method of bacteriological inoculation of the CSF on nutrient media, in the case of serous it is much longer. But the most dangerous for life - Epstein-Barr virus, herpes simplex virus, cytomegalovirus (only against them a specific treatment is developed) - can be determined by PCR for 2 days.

How is meningitis manifested?

Regardless of whether the meningitis is serous or purulent, the symptoms are as follows:

- headache in the parietal or other area, in the entire head, increasing in the vertical position, with the turns and slopes of the head, loud sounds and bright light; She is poorly treated with pain medication;

- elevated body temperature;

- it becomes easier for a person to lie down, often he takes a pose on his side with his knees pressed to his chest;

- nausea, vomiting, which are not dependent on food intake, while vomit can contain both food eaten the day before, and an admixture of bile, and if meningitis is caused by meningococcus, vomiting may contain veins of blood of brown color. After vomiting does not become easier;

- unpleasant sensations in the eyes when looking at a bright light;

- weakness, drowsiness;

- the impossibility of lying down to get his chin to the sternum (often with his back very drawn);

- Touching the skin feels stronger several times and causes unpleasant sensations;

- convulsions with loss of consciousness on the background of increased body temperature (but in children under 6 years of age, cramps can be indicative of the disease against the background of a temperature not higher than 38.5, since if they occur at a higher temperature, this is not necessarily meningitis, it may be Just a sign of immaturity of the nervous system);

- a rash of any kind that does not itch and arose against a background of increased body temperature.

These symptoms with purulent meningitis appear either immediately, or against the backdrop of inadequate treatment (or refusal of treatment) of otitis, sinusitis, a cold with the release of purulent mucus, the frontitis. Symptoms of serous meningitis are the same, only they appear usually after for some time a person complains of sore throat, runny nose, sore throat, minor cough, unpronounced diarrhea, conjunctivitis.