Signs of meningitis in adults: do not lose time

Meningitis is the development of inflammatoryphenomena in the soft shell that surrounds the brain. This disease occurs when microbes enter the body, which can overcome the barriers that protect the brain and its membranes. This can occur by contact in the case of a penetrating wound with a dirty object; hematogenous way - as a result of blood infection. Microorganisms can also get to a person through the air, then it develops a runny nose, sinusitis or otitis, as a result, the infection already gets to the membranes of the brain. Signs of meningitis in adults should be known to all people, as timely treatment in the hospital can prevent many dangerous consequences.

For the development of meningitis is not only importantgetting a microbe that can overcome the blood-brain barrier, but also a general weakening of the body, chronic brain diseases (according to the principle "where it is thin, there it breaks"). So, the same microbe, caught by a supercooled smoker, is more likely to cause pneumonia. But getting to a person who has recently suffered a brain injury, a teenager with increased intracranial pressure since childhood or an elderly person with cerebral atherosclerosis, in a large percentage of cases he will cause meningitis.

Signs of meningitis in adults

The disease has the characteristic symptoms:

• headache, which arose on the background of a significantincrease in temperature. It is intense, spreads over the entire head (less often in the temples or in the forehead), is amplified by changing the position of the body, loud sounds, and sharp switching on of light. It is easier for a patient to lie on his side, with his head thrown back. The more time passes, the greater the pain, the less it gives in to anesthesia;
• photophobia;
• increased sensitivity of the skin to previously imperceptible stimuli;
• nausea, there may be vomiting, after which it does not become easier;
• in adults, signs of meningitis also includethe appearance of a rash of dark (red, lilac, brown or black) color that does not itch, does not turn pale when the skin is stretched under it, often begins to appear on the buttocks and legs.

These are the first signs of meningitis in adults. They can appear both suddenly and after previous diseases, such as rubella, chicken pox, measles, mumps. These infections, although considered "childish", are increasingly common in adults, and the older the person, the greater the likelihood of their complicated course.

Signs of meningitis in adults can manifestafter a person for some time was sick with genyantritis, a frontitis, an otitis, he had a strong cold. Most often, meningitis occurs after diseases of the ENT organs in those people who, due to congenital or acquired defects of the bones of the skull, suffer from the flow of cerebrospinal fluid from the nose or ear. They have any rhinitis or otitis can (and often ends) with meningitis, and if one does not deal with the plasticity of the damaged bone structure, one of the meningitis can result in disability and even death.

Other signs of meningitis in adults

Sometimes meningitis can manifest pain not in the head, but in the back. It also occurs against the background of high fever, accompanied by weakness, fatigue, decreased appetite, nausea and vomiting.

Symptoms of meningitis also include: confusion, delirium, hallucinations, convulsions with impaired consciousness. These symptoms appear somewhat later than the fever and headache.

At the present time, to say exactly howmeningitis in adults is difficult enough: more and more frequent atypical forms of the disease that occur with one or two symptoms, and those are not particularly pronounced. Sometimes even checking meningeal symptoms is questionable. But if you are worried about a headache amid a high temperature, you do not want to eat and it's very hard to get up because of the increased headache, call an ambulance and do not refuse hospitalization in an infectious hospital.