Meningitis: Causes, Treatment and Prevention

Meningitis is inflammation meninges. Early diagnosis and treatment is important for preventing severe consequences and even death. Anybody can suffer from this condition, but it occurs more frequently in children and people with a deficient immune system.

Meningitis symptoms:

Viral meningitis (or aseptic) is the most common and the least serious. Symptoms are very similar to those of the common flu, like headache and neck stiffness. Symptoms tend to be accompanied by fever.
Bacterial meningitis, which is less common, is usually severe and is life threatening if not treated immediately.
Other general meningitis symptoms are: abnormal light or sound intolerance, consciousness disorders and irritability, fever, vomiting, joint pain, irregular breathing, increase in cardiac rhythm, and in some conditions, seizures.
Symptoms are vague and variable in small children. The child could feel irritable and/or very drowsy.
Some cases can present skin rashes, which would indicate a particular form of meningitis called meningococcemia.

Causes of meningitis:

The most common causes are bacteria that arrive at the meninges and the cerebrospinal fluid, through the nose or the mouth. These bacteria tend to block the nerves in the brain which leads to unconsciousness and brain damage, and in the majority of cases, damage in other organs. Meningitis is generally a medical emergency as it progresses very quickly.
Bacteria and virus cause infections in the skin, the urinary tract or the respiratory tract, as well as the gastrointestinal tract. They can travel through the blood stream, arriving at the meninges through the cerebrospinal fluid.
Poisoning
Fungi
Medications
Illness

Emotional causes of meningitis:

Meningitis, like all illnesses, is also influenced by the individual’s emotional world. Family discord or being in a work or school environment that causes unexpressed fear and rage are emotional environments that, along with weakening the body’s immune system defenses, creates a lot of tension, exhaustion, and internal imbalance in the systems and organs. This emotional environment predisposes the individual to suffering from meningitis. Confusion or a sense of lack of support, especially emotional, also create the emotional conditions that could influence someone suffering from this condition.

That’s why this condition a lot of times affects children of all ages and students. They could live in extremely tense and confusing environments. Closed environments could incubate the virus and cause contagion, but infections only happen in a weakened body, both emotionally as well as biologically.

Meningitis diagnosis:

This is done through a medical procedure known as lumbar puncture. A special needle is inserted into the spinal column to extract a sample of the cerebrospinal fluid (the liquid surrounding the brain and the spinal cord.

Meningitis treatments:

Treatment, as indicated above, must be immediate. Taking an antibiotic is one way of treating it, when caused by bacterial infections, or antivirals. In some cases, corticosteroids are administered which could prevent possible consequences of inflammation like long-term deafness, epilepsy, hydrocephalus, or cognitive deficiency, especially in patients whose treatment has been delayed. Vaccines can also prevent bacterial infections.

Natural treatment and prevention for meningitis

In extreme cases or if you suspect meningitis, do not hesitate is seeking professional help assistance. Once the problem is controlled you can follow a treatment plan coordinated with some other natural treatment, even to prevent a possible relapse, or a new infection.

To prevent and help deeply cure meningitis (and not just control it with medication) you absolutely must follow a proper diet to help strengthen the body’s defenses. If you would like to know about diet and foods to strengthen the immune system and to return its strength against contagions and infections, follow this link, which will give you a stupendous diet and foods that you should eat.

In addition to this, it is absolutely necessary if you have suffered from meningitis, that you consider treatment to understand your emotional world, so that your immune system will not have this excessive wear due to emotions like rage, confusion, and fear. Bioenergetics and reflexology are alternatives that could help balance your emotional world, although reading about how to handle rage is also recommendable, as well as going to a workshop to learn how to understand yourself emotionally.