DeAlonzia Baylor
Health Science Theory Period 5
March 8, 2018
Introduction
Botulism is a rare serious illness caused by the botulinum toxin (Brunner, 2018). This illness causes paralysis and eventually death if not treated right away. It affects certain age groups depending on the type you are dealing with. Some are specialized only for children, whereas others affect the whole population no matter the age.
Pathophysiology
Botulism is caused by the toxin Clostridium botulinum, a bacteria that can grow on poorly preserved or canned foods. There are four main types of Botulism; Foodborne, Wound, Infant, and Adult Intestinal. All of these types are very dangerous, but you can get them from different sources. You can get foodborne botulism from food contaminated with the botulinum toxin. This happens mostly in homemade foods that are not preserved correctly, or were already contaminated at the store. Wound botulism occurs when the organism enters through the wound and begins producing the toxin within the wound. People who use needles to insert drugs and those who have suffered tramas, like a motorcycle …show more content…
Because botulism is not a very common disease, most doctors don't immediately test for it. They might test for other things like a stroke, Guillian-Barre syndrome, opioid overdose, etc (CDC,2017). If the disease found early enough before if progresses it can be treated with a antitoxin (Clark,2010). This antitoxin prevents the Clostridium botulinum, toxin from traveling through the bloodstream. Those who have more severe symptoms may have to be hospitalized. If the patient has wound botulism, there may be a chance that the infected part or wound may have to be amputated or removed. Most infants infected with Infant botulism have to be treated in the intensive care unit (ICU) because of how quickly and severely the disease takes over their