Symptoms of polio - a terrible viral disease

A dangerous polio virus that causes spinal paralysis (also called Heine-Medin's disease) affects the gray matter of the spinal cord and the motor cores of the brain stem. This ailment leads to deformity of the limbs and partial immobilization. Let's get acquainted with the general information about this disease. After all, the symptoms of poliomyelitis need to be known even now, in an age of vaccinations.

How does the infection occur?

The virus enters the body through dirty hands. The incubation period lasts up to three weeks. During this time, the virus multiplies in the thickness of the oral mucosa and gastrointestinal tract. At this time, the symptoms of polio do not appear, but the person is a carrier and can infect other people throughout this period. Some of the diseased people encounter at this time with the defeat of the nervous system. Most of the infected people feel the first symptoms of poliomyelitis only at the end of the incubation period, when the virus enters the lymphatic system and then into the blood. Further, the pathogen appears in the nervous system, crossing the blood-brain barrier. That is why the disease in question is so dangerous for children. After all, hitting the nervous system, it interferes with normal development. The child is most vulnerable to four years. Timely vaccinations (the first - at the age of three months), and then the revaccination of polio can now prevent a disease that leads to disability. And in fact earlier this disease was one of the most terrible infectious diseases.

Symptoms of poliomyelitis

There are several forms of this disease. They vary greatly in severity. There is an unsuccessful poliomyelitis - in the event that the immune response of the body destroyed the pathogen during the incubation phase. The nonparalytic form is the initial one. She has a general malaise, a slight fever, dyspepsia, muscle and headaches. All these manifestations disappear in a couple of weeks and can later develop into a paralytic form. The latter is the heaviest and has the most terrible consequences. Immediately after the end of the incubation period, convulsions and characteristic pains appear, because of them muscle weakness develops . In the future this form of poliomyelitis dramatically progresses. The flaccidity grows, the reflexes first become elevated, and then disappear. Patients complain of seizures and paresthesia (violation of the sensitivity of the limbs, numbness, tingling). Partial Paralysis of the hands and feet occurs for several weeks, and then passes, leaving considerable deformities and atrophies. Many polio-infected people become disabled afterwards.

It is also necessary to mention meningeal, spinal, encephalitic, intestinal and bulbar forms of poliomyelitis. The latter has a high mortality rate.

Treatment

There is still no specific polio medication. Patients are isolated in a hospital for up to forty days. At this time, the affected limbs are symptomatically treated. During the recovery period a lot of time is devoted to physical therapy, massage.