Infectious diseases >>>> Botulism - signs and treatment options

Botulism - signs and treatment options.

Disease botulism refers to a potentially dangerous infectious disease with a fatal outcome if care is not provided in a timely manner. For this reason, it is necessary to clearly understand what factors can provoke infection with the bacterium Clostridium botulinum, the toxins of which are deadly for a living organism. The bacterium Clostridium botulinum lives everywhere, but to a greater extent is found in the soil, in the water of natural basins. Spores of botulism bacteria can enter human food due to violation of hygiene standards and improper approach to food processing. In addition to the digestive tract, wounds and the respiratory tract can be entry points for the bacteria Clostridium botulinum.

Clostridium botulinum is an anaerobic bacterium that does not require oxygen to function. It is in the absence of oxygen that the bacterium Clostridium botulinum is capable of producing a neurotoxin of such a toxicity level, which in a fairly short period of time is capable of affecting the structures of the nervous system and causing muscle and respiratory paralysis.

Poorly washed vegetables, berries, mushrooms, meat and fish products that have not undergone proper heat treatment are most often a source of bacterial infection. Violation of the technology of canning vegetable and meat products, insufficient temperature conditions during heat treatment of milk can have fatal consequences. Canned food is for some time in the absence of oxygen during the sealing of the container, which creates the conditions for the production of a deadly toxin. Such products, which have not undergone repeated heat treatment, can be a source of botulism infection.

Signs of botulism do not appear immediately, but after a few days. At first, a person's well-being does not change, but symptoms that are atypical for poisoning may appear:

double vision, flies, mesh before the eyes,
dizziness, general weakness,
signs of thirst - drying out of the mouth,
later symptoms: impaired swallowing function and loss of speech are observed at a time when toxins have already affected a sufficient number of nerve endings.

In fact, a person, consuming products contaminated with a toxin (not a bacterium), receives a dose of a nerve agent. But there are cases of infection not by toxins, but by spores of the bacteria itself, which germinate in the digestive tract and begin to produce toxin directly in the human body. This happens in cases with children or adults who have a low level of gastric acidity. With normal and increased acidity of the gastric enzyme, germination of bacterial spores does not occur. For this reason, food botulism is distinguished, when bacterial toxins enter the body, and infant botulism, when bacterial spores enter the body if they are swallowed or inhaled by a child from the surfaces of household items, toys, dirty hands, not washed vegetables and fruits.

With a timely appeal to a medical institution (until the toxic damage to all life support structures occurs, especially the muscles involved in breathing and swallowing), there is the possibility of treating botulism - neutralizing the toxin using antitoxic serum. Anti-botulinum serum has several varieties depending on the type of botulinum toxin. There is also a polyvalent serum that includes antitoxin from all types of botulinum toxin.

All cases of death due to infection with botulinum toxin are attributed to an incorrect diagnosis or to the untimely appeal of the victim for medical help.

It is the fact of ignorance of the early symptoms of a terrible disease that leads to death. The victims do not associate visual impairments and dizziness with a foodborne infection, and they lose valuable time.

How to protect yourself from the terrible botulinum toxin in everyday life?

You need to know four conditions under which a bacterium produces toxin:

anoxic conditions of bacteria vegetation,
a low degree of acidity of the environment in which canned food is found,
insufficiently high processing temperatures for food,
insufficiently low storage temperatures of hermetically sealed food products (in favorable conditions of the absence of oxygen, but at low temperatures of refrigeration units, the bacterium does not produce toxin).