How long does food poisoning last for children and adults?

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We have been dealing with food poisoning for a long time. Once people began to eat, so the digestive structures began to be attacked by various bacteria, toxins or poisonous substances.

According to statistics, the number of food intoxications annually increases, and more than 2 million people die from poisoning per year, which can not but frighten.

Flow characteristics

Food intoxications usually follow the same pattern.

  • They start abruptly, can take place on a mass scale, while the use of a certain product will be characteristic.
  • The disease progresses swiftly, passes quickly and usually has a favorable outcome, except for botulism.
  • In this case, the duration of a certain poisoning is determined by the type and amount of poor-quality product, as well as the speed with which the necessary therapeutic measures have been taken.
  • The peculiarity of food poisoning and toxic infections is a relatively short incubation period - about 2-6 hours with a rapidly developing clinical picture. Such pathologies often take the form of epidemiological outbreaks in any collective, family, or all individuals who used this product.
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  • No less important is the type of toxin or causative agent of food intoxication. But according to statistics, about half of the intoxications remain for doctors with an unexplained etiology.

Doctors believe that those intoxications that occur in acute form end more quickly and pass much more easily than slowly developing poisoning.

How long does food poisoning last?

Usually, slight food intoxication is accompanied by a small intestinal disorder with a single vomiting. At the same time, the temperature indicators remain at normal levels.

Passes such a pathology in a couple of days. But the body and GIT structures quickly get rid of toxic agents, after which the digestive activity is restored.

To the category of light poisoning include food-borne diseases, which arise from the defeat of pathogenic bacteria, with the use of poor-quality seafood, sour-milk products, unwashed fruits or vegetables.

  • Usually, infection occurs due to the use of poor-quality meat or dairy products or eggs.
  • Incubation in this case is about 8-12 hours, although it can take only a couple of hours.
  • The victim is vomiting, stomach pains disturb, then vomiting with diarrhea occurs.

With the correct therapeutic measures, after 2-4 days all pathological intoxication symptoms disappear.

Also to light poisoning include alcohol intoxication, and, more simply, intoxication due to the use of alcoholic beverages.

If the concentration of ethanol in the blood reaches 3%, then the next morning the person will wake up with a pronounced hangover syndrome, which is accompanied by nausea, weakness, vomiting, strong thirst, etc. This state lasts about 1-2 days.

If the ethanol in the blood is much larger, then the patient's condition will be heavier. This will already be severe alcohol intoxication, which is accompanied by cramps, respiratory disorders and the risk of cardiac arrest. When the pathological symptomatology passes, it is necessary to provide the body with support at the expense of a special sparing diet.

Heavy

To severe poisoning include intoxication with fungi, botulism, staphylococcus or salmonella infection. Such intoxication is very difficult.

Characteristic signs of severe intoxication are such manifestations as:

  1. Invincible vomiting;
  2. Prolonged, uninterrupted diarrhea;
  3. Hyperthermia at 39 degrees and above;
  4. Fecal liquid masses have bloody patches;
  5. Salivation is markedly increased, up to drooling;
  6. There are some visual disturbances such as bifurcation, misty haze or blurred image;
  7. The victim may lose consciousness, become unconscious;
  8. Blood pressure values ​​are markedly increased;
  9. The volumes of urine, as well as its specific gravity are critically reduced.

Staphylococcus can manifest itself for a couple of more days, but intoxication with mushrooms or salmonella will disturb at least 5-6 days. With botulism, the predictions are often unfavorable.

Much depends on the state of the organism's internal structures, how the liver and kidneys, intestinal structures work, etc. If the health of these organs is good, recovery will occur much more quickly.

Factors complicating the course of

According to experts, the most severe food intoxication occurs in the elderly and children.

Over 70% of all deaths due to intoxication are children under 14 years of age.

  • So, the course of intoxication burdens the younger child or the elderly age of the victim.
  • Recovery is also more difficult in patients with a history of chronic pathological conditions.
  • With a sudden onset of emetic reactions and diarrhea, which soon pass, intoxication will be relatively easy for a couple of days.
  • If the symptoms of intoxication occur only 12-24 hours after the patient has eaten a low-quality product, and the characteristic emetic-diarrheal reactions with time only gaining momentum, then such intoxications usually take place much harder. Therapy of such conditions takes at least one and half to two weeks. A digestive activity is fully restored only a month later.
  • Serious dehydration or dehydration is important, because the body loses fluid with calories and vomit.
  • Toxins can act destructively on the hepatic cell structures, causing severe organ damage. In such situations, the toxin in the body may not be, but intoxication symptoms still continues to increase rapidly. With such intoxication, the predictions are based on the speed and dynamism of the increase in the clinical picture.

Food poisoning usually begins unexpectedly. When there is a sharp and early occurrence of manifestations and their rapid subsidence, the prognosis for the course of poisoning is favorable, such intoxication will last no more than a couple of days and will pass quite easily.

If the symptoms have manifested themselves in a day or more, develop and grow gradually, becoming more pronounced, then intoxication will be difficult.

Especially in the presence of indomitable emetic and diarrheal symptoms, hyperthermia and respiratory disorders. Such patients need urgent professional medical care and long-term therapy is recommended.

In order not to have to treat poisoning, it is necessary to more carefully approach the choice of consumed products. After all, according to statistics, most cases of food intoxication occur because of the patients themselves.

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