The human brain can be called centralcommanding authority. There are not only the centers responsible for understanding and reproducing speech, movement of limbs, memory and processing of visual information. The brain contains in its structure the center of regulation of the activity of the vessels and the heart, the main thermostat, the area controlling breathing, and many other most important areas. That is why this body is so reliably protected: it is covered with three membranes, between which liquid layers are located for cushioning, and at the cellular level it “guards” the barrier from the cells.
Если какой-то из микробов попадает на одну из brain membranes and provokes its inflammatory changes, meningitis develops. The diseased tissue swells, it increases blood circulation, aimed at helping it to quickly clear itself of the infection. Cells of the immune system, which are also involved in this process, are actively released into the cerebrospinal fluid, which plays a cushioning and supplying role for the brain and its membranes.
What is serous meningitis?This is when the CSF analysis (that is, the cerebrospinal fluid) contains more cells than normal (the norm for an adult is 10 cells per 1 microliter, in children it is slightly more), and most of them are lymphocytes. It is these cells of the immune system that are the first to participate in viral processes, and serous meningitis is almost always caused by viruses.
What is serous meningitis and what causes it?
The disease is caused by microbes that can overcome cellular defense, which is protected by the brain. These are mainly viruses:
- enteroviruses that are transmitted by airborne droplets, through kisses, when using thermally untreated water, milk, dairy and some other products;
- Herpes simplex viruses that can enterto a person in completely different ways: through airborne droplets, through sexual intercourse, and if the contents of the herpetic vesicle get on the skin or mucosa of another person, and from mother to child during pregnancy and childbirth;
- varicella-zoster, parotitis, measles, rubella, adenovirus viruses, “arriving” by air from a sick person;
- viruses that can get on tick bites.
Серозный менингит инкубационный период в этом the case has from 2 to 14 days (an average of 5-8), then usually develop symptoms inherent in many diseases (cough, fever, rash or diarrhea), and only then signs appear that are specific to meningitis.
Серозный менингит может быть вызван и бактериями.These are a few microbes: tubercle bacillus, leptospira, rickettsia, listeria. Fungi, which can most often be the causative agents of meningitis in HIV infection, also cause serous meningitis.
This disease often begins with manifestations of a viral disease: cough, runny nose, cold, measles, chicken pox, and so on occur. Then appear:
1) the temperature rises to high (usually) numbers:this may be the “second wave” of hyperthermia (that is, before that the temperature has already managed to return to normal), or there may be a fever that continues from the first days of the disease;
2) severe headache, which is aggravated by movements of the head, on rising, usually localized in the whole head;
3) nausea, vomiting, which can occur without regard to food intake;
4) rash: as with chickenpox, measles, rubella, with enteroviral meningitis, small red specks appear copiously throughout the body;
5) photophobia;
6) lethargy, weakness, a person tries to lie more;
7) increased skin sensitivity.
The history of the disease "Serous meningitis" should cover all these nuances:
- how the disease began;
- what a person associates with his appearance (hypothermia, contact with a sick cold or diarrhea);
- what symptoms appeared later, was there a positive reaction to the use of painkillers;
- Objective symptoms that the doctor checks to justify the need for lumbar puncture;
- quantity and quality of cellular composition of cerebrospinal fluid, protein, protein-sediment samples, electrolytes of cerebrospinal fluid;
- biochemical blood tests;
- PCR study of liquor on the DNA of herpes simplex viruses, CMV, EBV;
- bacteriological examination of blood and cerebrospinal fluid;
- treatment;
- diaries of observation of the dynamics of the course of diseases;
- a picture of the dynamics of changes in the liquor.