Nervous system damage and paralysis: the doctor told how to recognize the symptoms of botulism

Botulism is a rare but very serious disease. There are several forms of the disease, but the most common is considered foodborne – it develops due to improper processing and non-compliance with food storage conditions.

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What is botulism?

Candidate of medical sciences, doctor, head of the department of emergency and urgent care EMC

“Botulism is a serious infectious disease. It is not transmitted from person to person. Most often outbreaks are due to the consumption of contaminated food.”

The disease is caused by the bacterium Clostridium botulinum, which produces dangerous toxins (botulinum toxins) in low oxygen conditions. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), botulinum toxins are among the deadliest substances known. They block nerve function and can lead to respiratory and muscle paralysis.

Causes of botulism

Botulinum toxins enter the body through improperly processed food. In a low-oxygen environment, they survive, grow and produce toxins.

According to Rospotrebnadzor of Russia, botulism is often contracted after consuming hermetically sealed canned food, pickles and smoked homemade, where air does not penetrate and where favorable conditions are created for the preservation of the pathogen.

In this case, the appearance, taste and odor of products do not change.

Symptoms of botulism

According to the doctor, the insidiousness of botulism is that the disease begins with the familiar symptoms of food poisoning: nausea, vomiting. However, there is a distinctive feature – there is a parallel lesion of the nervous system.

Violates the process of transmission of nerve impulses to muscles and tissues, and this, in turn, can cause various paralysis. Among them – problems with vision, speech, swallowing, bilateral paresis of the facial nerve. In this case, a person can not wrinkle his forehead or grin his teeth, the loss of mimic activity.

In the severe form of the course of the disease violates the process of breathing and even the work of the heart muscle. The incidence of botulism is low, but the mortality rate is high if timely diagnosis and appropriate immediate treatment are not carried out. The disease can be fatal in 5-10% of cases.

Symptoms are not caused by the bacterium itself, but by the toxin produced by the bacterium.

The incubation period of botulism (the time from infection to the appearance of the first symptoms) is no more than five days. On average, it is 24-48 hours.

Methods of diagnosis and treatment of botulism

With foodborne botulism, group poisonings are more often recorded among people who consumed the same product in the same period of time. As a rule, these are various canned foods (mushrooms, vegetables, fruits), smoked or dried fish, pork fat.

Diagnosis of the disease is based on a combination of clinical signs and laboratory tests aimed at detecting botulinum toxin and bacteria in the patient’s vomit and blood. Also for the presence of toxin necessarily examine the products that are suspected to have caused the poisoning.

Botulism requires urgent care, the patient must be under constant observation. Therefore, when the first symptoms appear, it is necessary to bring the victim to the hospital as soon as possible. The sooner this is done, the higher the chances for a safe recovery.

The patient is given a gastric lavage, enemas and sorbents. All this is necessary to slow the effect of the toxin and partially remove it from the body.

Botulism is dangerous for the development of serious complications, including respiratory failure. It can lead to the death of the patient.

Prevention of botulism

Foodborne botulism can be prevented by following some precautions:

• Do not can foods that show signs of spoilage and rot;
• Do not buy canned food at the market or from random persons;
• do not violate the technology of preparation: do not reduce the amount of salt, vinegar, do not reduce the time of heat treatment;
• do not consume canned food from bloated jars;
• store canned food only in the refrigerator or in the cellar.

And remember: the symptoms of botulism cannot be ignored, you need to seek medical help as soon as possible.