Symptoms of tetanus

  Tetanus is caused by the tetanus bacillus entering the body through a broken wound to grow and reproduce and produce toxins, these toxins mainly invade the nervous system, muscle spasm is the main manifestation of the disease.  The onset of tetanus is generally slow, and the early stage can have symptoms similar to the flu, such as weakness, headache, muscle pain, etc., as well as chewing, difficulty opening the mouth and other symptoms, the patient’s sanity is still clear during this period.  As the disease progresses, typical clinical symptoms gradually appear, including muscle spasm or muscle tonicity in various parts of the body, such as neck tonicity and head tilting back (clinically known as kyphosis), and also involving the abdominal muscles and diaphragm. If the sympathetic nerve is invaded, it can cause symptoms of sympathetic hyperexcitation, such as panic attacks, sweating, high fever, etc. Progression of the lesion can lead to cardiopulmonary and cerebral failure. If diaphragm spasm or laryngeal muscle spasm edema occurs it will lead to critical conditions such as laryngeal obstruction and life-threatening obstruction of the airway. These clinical symptoms can be triggered by weak stimuli such as light stimulation, sound stimulation, etc. Therefore, the tetanus patient’s room needs to be kept quiet.  Therefore, it is important to prevent tetanus by administering tetanus antitoxin as soon as there is a break in the body.