Can a Baby Get Meningitis From Ear Infection

Meningitis, Bacterial

What is bacterial meningitis?
Meningitis is an infection of the membranes (meninges) surrounding the brain and spinal string that can occur at any age. It is ordinarily caused by bacteria or virus (see Meningitis, Viral) that has infected the bloodstream. At that place is also a rare, fungal form that tin affect people with severely compromised immune systems.

Fifty-fifty though meningitis is relatively rare (only 10,000 Americans are affected annually), it is fatal in approximately 10 to thirteen per centum of all cases, nearly of which are the consequence of bacterial infections. Another ten percent of cases develop serious health problems as a consequence of meningitis. These complications may include permanent mental impairment, hearing loss and seizures. In the 1990s, surveys conducted by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed that college freshmen living in dormitories were at a slightly increased risk, and since then, many colleges and universities accept been recommending (or requiring) that incoming freshmen be vaccinated against the nearly common infectious agents that tin can cause the disease.

What are the symptoms?
Early symptoms in adults and adolescents, which may develop over several hours or even days, can often be mistaken for the flu. They classically include high fever, headache (that can exist astringent) with a potent neck, nausea, airsickness, defoliation, sleepiness or difficulty waking upward, light sensitivity, a decreased ambition and, in some cases a skin rash or seizures.

Newborns and young infants may not have classic signs and symptoms of meningitis, just instead may cry inconsolably, accept excessive sleepiness or irritability, a poor suck or decreased feeding, a bulging fontanelle – the soft spot on the top of a babe's head – or stiffness in the body, head and neck. Infants with meningitis are often difficult to comfort, and oft weep harder when held. If there is a suspicion of bacterial meningitis, medical treatment should be sought immediately.

The complications can be severe. The longer ane goes without treatment, the greater the take chances of seizures and of permanent neurological damage, including hearing loss, blindness, loss of speech, learning disabilities, beliefs problems and brain harm, fifty-fifty paralysis. Bacterial infections of the central nervous organization progress apace. Within a affair of days, sometimes hours, the illness can lead to stupor and death. Non-neurological complications can include fluid and electrolyte abnormalities, kidney and adrenal failure, life-threatening changes in blood clotting and fluid build-up in the lungs that can lead to respiratory distress.

What are the causes?
The bacterial type of meningitis is more than unsafe than the viral blazon. Meningitis in newborns follows sepsis (an infection of the bloodstream) caused past exposure to bacteria (ordinarily group B. streptococci or Due east. coli) in the birth canal. Older infants and children develop bacterial meningitis after exposure to respiratory secretions from infected people.

Although many dissimilar kinds of leaner can cause meningitis, the one almost ofttimes responsible for this potentially disastrous affliction is Neisseria meningitides, or meningococcus. Information technology can be spread by kissing; sharing eating utensils, cigarettes or drinking glasses; or from droplets spread by a coughing or sneeze. Other mutual bacterial causes include S. pneumoniae (pneumococcus) and H. influenzae (H. flu), which, in addition to meningitis, can also crusade upper respiratory infections, pneumonia, ear and sinus infections. Pneumococcus is the most mutual cause of meningitis in infants and young children. Both of these leaner accept been leading causes of meningitis in children prior to the 1990s. However with the advent of vaccinations against each, the incidence of meningitis from these bacteria take been greatly reduced.

An unfinished childhood vaccine schedule can significantly increase the risk of bacterial meningitis. In add-on, anyone working or living in close quarters is more than susceptible to infections like this. Besides higher students living in dormitories, personnel on armed forces bases or living in barracks, kids in boarding schools and at daycare facilities all take an increased risk of developing meningitis.

Since the vaccines accept been developed, bacterial meningitis is no longer primarily afflicts children under age five; it has become a disease of teenage years and early adulthood. If you are pregnant or piece of work with animals, you lot are at an increased risk of contracting an infection acquired by the bacteria, Listeria monocytogenes, which may atomic number 82 to meningitis. Likewise if y'all are immune compromised in any mode (due to AIDS, diabetes, removal of your spleen, receiving cancer treatment or allowed suppressive therapy), you have a college chance of getting meningitis. Moreover, this population tin be susceptible to fungal infections in addition to the typical bacterial and viral culprits.

Cryptococcal meningitis is a fungal form of the illness that affects people with immune deficiencies such every bit AIDS and can exist life-threatening if not treated early with aggressive antifungal medications.

What is the conventional handling?
Acute bacterial meningitis requires prompt hospitalization and handling with intravenous antibiotics to ensure recovery and reduce complications. The medications chosen depend on the type of bacteria causing the infection. Oftentimes, analyzing a sample of cerebrospinal fluid (obtained past a spinal tap) can help identify the pathogen and signify whether the meningitis is viral, fungal or bacterial. In most all cases, however, if bacterial meningitis is suspected, doctors will typically use a broad-spectrum antibody or combination of antibiotics until culture results make up one's mind the exact cause.

Doctors may also recommend treatment to manage the complications that might occur; for case, acute brain swelling, shock, fluid abnormalities, convulsions or aridity. Patients may be placed in a critical care unit for intense treatment and observation. They are ordinarily put in isolation to reduce spread of the infection, and salubrious contacts who accept been exposed to meningococcus volition usually require prophylactic handling.

These types of preventive measures typically involve only those who have been in shut proximity with the sick person – household members, intimate contacts, daycare center playmates, roommates, etc. Coincidental contact every bit might be seen in a regular classroom, office or factory setting is not usually significant plenty to cause concern, nor does it crave mandatory treatment, but prompt notification to anyone that might accept been exposed is absolutely warranted. Preventative antibiotic therapy should be administered every bit shortly every bit possible (ideally within 24 hours subsequently the disease has been identified) and consists of either oral rifampin for two days or a one-time dose of ciprofloxacin.

The meningococcal vaccine can also be given to younger children who are at high risk of bacterial meningitis or who have been exposed to someone with the disease. It's approved for apply in children as young as two years old.

Unfortunately, fifty-fifty with firsthand and appropriate antibiotic treatment, equally many as 25 percent of newborns who develop bacterial meningitis cannot be saved. In older infants and children, the chance of not recovering from the affliction varies from about five percent for infections H. Influenza, to 10 percent for meningococcus, to as high as 20 percent when pneumococcus is the cause. Of those that survive, well-nigh ane in 4 newborns will develop serious complications, while older children typically have fewer problems subsequently in life.

What therapies does Dr. Weil recommend for bacterial meningitis?
The conventional approach to bacterial meningitis is the all-time acute treatment. Getting intravenous antibiotics can exist life-saving.

From a preventative standpoint, it'south important to understand how the disease is spread. Pay attention to skillful hygiene: advisedly launder your hands before eating and subsequently using the toilet, and especially within a crowded setting or after contact with animals; cover your mouth and nose when coughing or sneezing, and wash hands later on. If you're pregnant, reduce your risk of listeriosis by cooking meat thoroughly, likewise as avoiding prepare-to-eat foods like hot dogs and lunch meats. Eat difficult cheeses instead of soft ones made with unpasteurized milk (like feta, Brie, Camembert, blue-veined cheeses and Mexican style cheeses such as queso fresco, queso blanco and panela).

Maintain your immune system by getting plenty residuum and regular exercise, following Dr. Weil's anti-inflammatory diet, taking a daily antioxidant and multivitamin-mineral supplement, and attending to the stress in your life. Immune boosting tonics are certainly a good for you option to learn almost if yous take an increased risk of bacterial infections of any kind. For maintaining strong allowed part, Dr. Weil recommends astragalus. Yous tin can purchase extracts of astragalus in liquid, capsule or tablet grade. Follow the dosing directions on the packet. You can also have immune-stimulating mushrooms, especially in combinations of maitake (Grifola frondosa), reishi (Ganoderma lucidum), regal sun agaricus (Agaricus blazei), and other traditional medicinal species, which seem to human action amend when used together than when taken individually.

Finally, getting the meningococcal vaccine is a good thought, especially for those who are susceptible and at increased hazard. The vaccine offers 85- to 95 percent protection confronting iv bacterial strains that are responsible for seventy percent of meningococcal disease in the United States, but volition not help protect against the strains responsible for the remaining 30 percentage. Immunity lasts for iii to five years. Even if you are immunized, should you be exposed to meningococcal meningitis subsequently, yous'll need prompt preventive antibiotic treatment every bit a precaution. The vaccine's side effects are minimal: some swelling and redness at the injection site and, rarely, flu-like symptoms or (even more than rare) an allergic reaction. If yous have had reactions to other vaccines, exist sure to talk to your doctor about the benefits of the vaccine weighed confronting whatsoever potential risk.

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Source: https://www.drweil.com/health-wellness/body-mind-spirit/disease-disorders/meningitis-bacterial/

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