12/19/2018 / By Ellaine Castillo
Botulism is one of the scariest infections that you’ll ever hear of in your life. This condition is caused by toxins from the bacteria Clostridium botulinum, which attack the nervous system. It’s usually very rare for healthy adults to contract botulism. However, improper food prepping practices increase the risk of getting this infection since stored food are more susceptible to contamination than fresh foods. So when maintaining your own food supply, make sure that you are taking the necessary safety precautions and that you know how to identify contaminated foods.
If you fail to identify the signs that your food is contaminated and you proceed to eat it, it’s possible for you to get botulism. Typically, the onset of this infection occurs in just 12 hours, but most people fail to notice it until three days after. Botulism infections exhibit different symptoms depending on how long a person has been suffering from it. Below is a list of symptoms starting from the earliest manifestations of botulism to those that appear later on.
Up to 10 percent of people who contract botulism die even with the existing treatments against it. This highlights the importance of knowing how the infection is contracted so that you can effectively avoid them.
Contaminated food is the most common cause of botulism. It’s rare for commercially available foods to house C. botulinum, so most foodborne cases of infection come from self-prepared foods. If you’re a prepper, make sure that you handle and store your food properly to protect them from bacterial contamination, especially since botulism-causing bacteria thrive in warm, moist environments that have low oxygen levels. Home-canned foods are especially susceptible to contamination since this bacteria can grow on the surface of the cans. If you observe any of the following from your canned goods, then there’s a big chance that they have already been contaminated and that you should throw them away.
Less common ways through which botulism can be contracted include inhalation of C. botulinum spores and botox injections. (Related: Botox Injections Can Leak Botulism Toxin Into the Brain, Warn Scientists.)
Once you have been diagnosed with foodborne botulism, you will be given treatments that aim to empty your stomach either through vomiting or fecal excretion. To provide further assistance, you can also use the following natural remedies:
For more articles about different types of bacterial infections, visit Infections.news.
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Tagged Under: botulinum toxin, botulism, clostridium botulinum, Contaminated Food, food prep, food preparation, food safety, Food storage, Foodborne botulism, foodborne disease, infections, toxins