Meningitis is a life-threatening disease,which is more common in children than in adults. This happens due to the fact that the child’s immunity is not yet as prepared as in adults. He has yet to learn what microbes live in the area, and learn how to deal with them.
Viruses, less commonly bacteria or protozoa arecauses of serous meningitis. The signs in children of this disease are not always specific, and it is almost impossible to distinguish serous inflammation from purulent in the clinic. Only with the help of a general analysis of the cerebrospinal fluid, which can be obtained during lumbar puncture (puncture in the lumbar vertebrae), is this diagnosis made.
Before developing itself directlyserous meningitis, signs in children will resemble a common viral disease. It is either a cough, or a runny nose, or a sore throat, less often diarrhea, conjunctivitis, and a reddish, small rash all over the body if an enterovirus has entered the child’s body. Then, only in 3-5 days, the meningitis clinic appears (all this time, the microbe was reaching the meninges and overcoming its defense).
Serous meningitis is usually not contagious.A patient can spread a virus or a bacterium into the environment, but the likelihood that a microbe will cause meningitis in another person is quite small. Adults who have been in contact with the patient will almost certainly develop conjunctivitis, acute respiratory infections, cough or diarrhea. Children can get sick with meningitis after such communication, but this is unlikely. Rather, if serous meningitis has arisen in several children attending the same child care facility, they together consumed food or drink contaminated with viruses.
Serous meningitis. Signs in children:
- The child's body temperature rises. These are usually high numbers that appear as a “second wave” against the background of the already normalized temperature, or its primary increase.
- Severe headache: a frontal part or temples hurts, a child may indicate pain that is spread all over the head.
- Lethargy, drowsiness.
- It is easier to lie down than to sit.
- Nausea, vomiting, usually without diarrhea, and afteras a child vomited, it becomes easier for him. Tears child under pressure ("vomiting fountain"). In this case, the masses have no diagnostic value in this case: they may contain an admixture of bile (yellow staining), greens, pieces of undigested or digested food.
- Disappears appetite, the child is not active and does not even want to watch cartoons or play computer games.
- There may be dizziness, photophobia.
- Increased skin sensitivity.
- There may be convulsions when a child not only involuntarily moves its limbs, but also stops responding to those around it.
- If you put your child's hand under your head and try to touch the chin of the sternum, then this is impossible (the symptom should be checked against the background of low body temperature or in its absence).
Serous meningitis. Signs in children under one year:
- Monotonous crying or crying may be moaning or other monotonous sounds that are accompanied by a grimace of pain. All this - against the background of increased body temperature.
- The child refuses to walk on his hands, since he is more comfortable in the supine position.
- Lying, he tries to take a specificPosition: on the side with pursed legs and head thrown back. If this is observed in a child as a separate symptom against the background of a normal temperature, this may indicate that there is an increase in intracranial pressure.
- A big spring erupts out (it should be flush with the bones of the skull and pulsate).
- The baby becomes lethargic, sleepy. At first, he may be unnaturally agitated, then this is replaced by a gradual sleep to the point that it becomes impossible to wake him up.
- Convulsions on the background of body temperature below 38 degrees, repeated convulsions.
- If the child is taken under the arms, he will tighten his legs to his chest and will resist
such violence from an adult, while a baby without meningitis will calmly flex, extend the legs, move them to the sides. - Vomiting "fountain".
And in infants up to a year, and in older children, serous meningitis can occur in the face of a rash.
Often bacterial meningitis has the samethe signs. It can be distinguished if it has appeared on the background of otitis, rhinitis, osteomyelitis, pneumonia or sinusitis, or there is a dark-colored rash on the body, which does not disappear and does not fade when pressed on it with glass. The main diagnosis is carried out by the study of cerebrospinal fluid.
