Early symptoms of bacterial meningitis include high fever, headache, chills, and stiff neck. The neck is so stiff that the patient cannot lower the chin to the chest. Other symptoms may include nausea and vomiting, confusion, irritability, and a red and purple skin rash. Very young children will be irritable and difficult to feed, extremely sleepy or difficult to wake, will cry inconsolably, and may have seizures. Infants may not have stiff neck. In some cases, especially where treatment is delayed, bacterial meningitis can cause brain damage that results in permanent disabilities and even death.
Bacterial meningitis usually starts with headache and fever, which are common to many illnesses, making bacterial meningitis difficult to diagnose at this stage. Symptoms more specific to bacterial meningitis include severe headache, pain when bending the neck forward or a stiff neck, and sometimes sensitivity to light. Later symptoms can include confusion, lethargy, or seizures. Symptoms can progress rapidly, and some patients experience delirium or coma by the time they seek treatment. In infants, the symptoms to be aware of are :
- Fever
- Irritability (fussy and crying a lot)
- Lethargy
- High-pitched cry
- Arching back
- Crying when moved
- A bulging fontanelle (the soft spot on an infant's head)
- Seizures
For children older than 1 year, look for :
- Fever
- Neck or back pain (or stiff neck)
- Headache
- Confusion
- Sensitivity to light
- Refusing to eat
- Decreased level of consciousness
- Seizures
- Nausea and vomiting
It is important to emphasize that children may not display all of the above signs and symptoms. "There is no way a parent can definitively tell if a child has bacterial meningitis, but parents are generally pretty aware of when their child is sick and in need of medical care," says Donald Goldmann, MD, an infectious disease expert at Children's Hospital Boston. "It's important that a patient shows up at the hospital quickly or it may be too late in the game."
