Meningitis

Meningitis is an extremely serious disease which should be disclosed and treated in the shortest possible time. There are three basic types of meningitis (excluding a great number of subtypes):

1. Bacterial meningitis which is caused by malignant bacteria. This is a very dangerous form of meningitis that should be immediately treated with antibiotics.
2. Amebic meningitis is the worst type of meningitis. Unfortunately, in the overwhelming majority of cases it leads to the fatal outcome. The only way to get this disease is to let specific specie of amoeba to nasally get inside your body. Such amoebas often inhabit geothermal sources.
3. Viral or serous meningitis is not dangerous for life unless you do not care about it for really long. Such type of meningitis generally makes you feel sick and tired all the time. This is an airborne infection that may be transmitted through coughing or sneezing.

What causes meningitis?

There are a whole lot of malignant microorganisms causing meningitis and here are some of them: meningococcus, pneumococcus, tubercle bacillus, amoebas, various viruses and so forth.

Some people are resistant to meningitis that is typically transmitted during coughing, sneezing and even kissing.

Symptoms of meningitis

Many symptoms typical for other diseases and disorders may appear on the early stage of this disease including nausea, vomiting, high temperature and rigor. People often think that they just caught flue and turn to domestic medicine. Please, do not do any self-treatment in such a case! Nothing will substitute a visit to a therapist.

Neck muscle tension, drowsiness and skin eruption are also common symptoms of meningitis meaning that you should urgently go to the hospital or even call the ambulance.

Please not that there may be different symptoms going side by side with each other or appearing solely and in different time. That is the main problem making people think that it is just common cold.

Another important thing worth remembering is that the incubation period of meningitis may last from 2 to 10 days. That is why one should never wait and ask for professional medical help immediately after a first symptom appears.

Considering that some people are more sensitive to meningitis than the others, please keep in mind that any delay may lead to the fatal outcome or to lasting complications that are difficult to cure – for example, to problems with sense of hearing.

Meningitis prevention

There are only two ways to prevent meningitis although none of them guarantees perfect efficiency. The first one is to get meningitis vaccination every 3 years and the other is to lead healthy lifestyle and take care about your immune system. A strong immune system often effectively stands against bacteria and viruses causing meningitis.

Meningitis treatment

Basically there is nearly nothing you could do yourself except taking some powerful preparations like Baclofen that may be incredibly healthful against early disease.

Anyway, a patient suffering from meningitis should be immediately hospitalized. The modern meningitis treatment includes use of antibiotics lasting for at least 10 days depending on the state of health and type or subtype of meningitis.

Penicillin, ceftriaxone and cefotaxime are three most popular type of medicine applied against meningitis. If they do not bring the needed effect the doctors have to use heavy artillery like vancomycin and other preparations of that kind. The faster you get to the hospital the less if the probability that vancomycin will be used. This antibiotic has a lot of incredibly unpleasant side effects. It is also used when there is a real opportunity of the lethal effect.

Some facts about meningitis

1. Hippocrates was probably the first who discovered meningitis.
2. There were several devastating meningitis epidemics in Europe and North America in the 19th century.
3. Effective meningitis treatment was developed only in the beginning on the 20th century.
4. Despite there were no epidemics of meningitis in the 20th century the scientists warn in may happen in the first half of the 21st century.
5. Children are three times more vulnerable to meningitis than adults.