Emergencies >>>> Dairy product poisoning - first aid

Dairy product poisoning - first aid.

We are used to using milk as an antidote for various kinds of poisoning. But what if the milk itself and its derivatives caused food poisoning?

Dairy products are among the most dangerous food products in terms of preparation in compliance with sanitary and epidemiological standards. Factory production of milk and related products presupposes the presence of autoclaves in the production process - devices capable of heating a product to high temperatures, which are a prerequisite for the death of pathogenic microorganisms.

Milk pasteurization - the process of heating the product to 60-90 degrees Celsius does not imply the complete destruction of pathogenic microorganisms in milk, since only some types of bacteria and fungi die at these temperatures, but their spores remain intact, and are able to germinate (start their vegetative activity) after lowering the temperature of the dairy product. For the purpose of destroying the remaining spores of pathogens, pasteurization is applied in several stages with cooling intervals in order to allow the remaining bacteria to resume their life cycle and once again act on them with high temperature. Pasteurization does not aim to sterilize a dairy product, since bacteria that participate in natural fermentation processes (milk oxidation) must remain alive, which makes it possible to obtain kefir, fermented baked milk, yogurt, cream from milk, sour cream, cottage cheese, cheeses, butter from milk.

Ultra-pasteurization of milk - the process of heating milk to 100 degrees Celsius for a few seconds to avoid boiling the product. Ultra-pasteurization is also not a sterilization of milk due to the short-term use of high temperatures.

There is no need to talk about the observance of sanitary and epidemiological standards in domestic industries. Here, the emphasis is on compliance with hygiene standards when storing milk and dairy products, as well as on an accelerated period of its implementation.

Neither the factory nor the home method of producing milk and dairy products will insure you against infectious lesions of the gastrointestinal tract and other vital body systems. If you do not boil milk, you are at risk. And the consumption of all derived products from milk does not at all make it possible to thermally process them before use.

If the fact of poisoning or suspicion of poisoning with dairy products takes place, it is necessary to quickly apply methods of first aid for poisoning with dairy products:

call an ambulance,
induce a gag reflex and try to clear the contents of the stomach,
drink plenty of water and induce vomiting (the volume of water reduces the concentration of the product in the digestive tract),
take activated charcoal in the form of a powder (it adsorbs some toxins that do not have time to enter the bloodstream).

All these methods are effective only at the time of the process of digestion of dairy food, when its components are still in the stomach. It may happen that the signs of milk poisoning (diarrhea, nausea, vomiting, fever, muscle pain) appeared only a day later - here mechanical methods of removing dairy products from the digestive tract are powerless, and chemical antidotes will be required to neutralize toxins, which are available only in a hospital.

Please note that infections such as listeriosis, brucellosis, salmonellosis, dysentery and botulism appear after a time when infectious agents or their toxins have already entered the bloodstream. Botulinum toxin is especially dangerous, the presence of which in the body is manifested not by typical symptoms of poisoning, but by a deterioration in well-being, similar to signs of various diseases. A very typical sign of a botulinum toxic infection is the appearance of flies in the eyes (mesh or double vision). And given that botulism can make itself felt even after a week or two, you should be very observant of your health.