Botulism

Botulism is a very serious food borne illness that has a great potential of becoming fatal if not treated quickly and aggressively.

The main type of this food illness is Clostridum botulinum which is from a bacteria that grows through soil. These are pole shaped organisms grow well in places where oxygen levels are low. The toxins in this type are seven altogether. They are all assigned by letters of A through G. The types A-F are the ones that cause sickness in people.

The most frequent way to contract this illness is through canned food which have been tampered with in some way, and in which bacteria is left to grow. It is a good idea to avoid canned food where the can is puckered out, or looks damaged.



Symptomatology

Warning signs of this food illness are the following:

You have disturbed vision which is doubled.

Bad speech patterns

Trouble in your swallowing ability

Mouth that feels like cotton

Symptoms will be around 18 to 37 hours after eating the bad food. These symptoms above will get worse and progress into a paralyzing feeling in the muscles and lungs.



If this illness goes untreated, it could prove very fatal.

Diagnosis

A stool examination is telltale way of telling this illness.

Treatment

Treatment usually requires hospitalization and even a ventilator once the symptoms have advanced. Early diagnosis can be treated with what is called an equine antitoxin. This medicine will block toxins from moving around inside the bloodstream. This helps a lot of people, but still takes many weeks of the drug to get well. Doctors may give drugs to induce vomiting to clean out the system from the poison foods.

Prevention of Botulism

One key to prevention I have learned from a true story on this illness. Never eat a leftover potato or anything wrapped in foil the next day. This is highly toxic and a gentleman I've read about nearly died and was in the hospital for weeks on end fighting for his life.

Watch canned goods and canned fish products too.

Always be very clean when handling meats and getting food well done in a restaurant is always for the best since you don;t know how they handle it.