Tetanus dietary taboos

Stimulating foods that tend to aggravate nerve excitement and induce muscle spasms, high-load foods that aggravate digestion and easily cause coughing/bloating, and foods that conflict with current treatment drugs. Most of the other conventional foods can be eaten normally. Most of the taboos about "foods" spread online do not have universal clinical basis.

When I was rotating in the emergency surgery department, I encountered too many family members carrying various supplements and specialties. They stood at the door of the ward and asked, "Can the doctor give this to the patient?" There were many cases of missteps. The most dangerous incident was for a 16-year-old boy who stepped on a rusty scaffolding nail and failed to get a tetanus shot in time. After the onset of the disease, he finally recovered from the tetanus injection for three days. His mother knew that the child usually likes to drink iced Americano, so she secretly hid a cup and brought it to the ICU. As a result, she just drank half a sip. The coldness and the caffeine in the coffee directly stimulated the nerves, causing laryngeal muscle spasm on the spot. Therefore, wine, strong tea, coffee, energy drinks with a large amount of taurine, and irritating foods that are so spicy that they choke your throat, or that are so cold that they can bite your teeth, should be strictly avoided. The core pathology of tetanus is that the neurotoxin secreted by Clostridium tetani causes muscle tonic spasm. Spasm of laryngeal and respiratory muscles is a direct risk of death. Foods that excite nerves and stimulate mucous membranes are completely stepping on the red line of the disease.

In addition to this kind of direct stimulation of the nerves, there are also many cases where family members do bad things with good intentions, that is, they always think that they need to take a lot of supplements when they are sick, and they specially pick greasy, hard-to-chew foods to give to the patients, which actually causes problems. Last month, there was an old man in his 60s. His tetanus symptoms had just been controlled and he was able to eat on his own. His son specially bought his favorite pork elbows with sauce and delivered them to him. The old man took two bites without chewing them, and choked them directly into the trachea. After more than half an hour, he used a bronchoscope to take out the minced meat that had been sucked in. During the onset of tetanus, the muscles of the whole body are in a state of tension, including gastrointestinal smooth muscles and swallowing-related muscles. The peristalsis and reflexes are weaker than normal people. Things that are difficult to chew and digest, such as fried food, sticky cakes, and large pieces of hard meat, will either easily choke the airway, or accumulate in the stomach and cause severe abdominal distension, which will put a burden on the body. Try not to touch it.

As for the most frequently asked question, "Can hair be eaten?", there are actually different clinical views on this, and there is no absolute standard answer. There is no concept of "fat food" in the Western medicine system. Eggs, milk, fresh shrimps, and lean beef are all high-quality proteins, which are consumed by patients during their illness. More supplements can help wounds heal and improve resistance. I have seen many family members strictly follow the taboo of "fat food" and give patients white porridge every day. In the end, they develop hypoalbuminemia and stay in the hospital for an extra week. Some of the "foods" that are taboo in traditional medicine are actually more targeted at people who are susceptible to allergies or have extremely weak digestive functions. They are afraid that eating them will cause allergies and indigestion, which will affect recovery. So if you don’t feel uncomfortable eating these things on a regular basis, there is no need to avoid them at all. If you are allergic, let’s talk about it separately.

Finally, there is another point that is easily overlooked, which is the conflict between diet and medication. For example, metronidazole and some cephalosporin antibiotics commonly used during treatment can cause a disulfiram reaction when exposed to alcohol, which can lead to sudden death in serious cases. Therefore, it is best not to touch not only liquor and beer, but also mash, chocolate with wine heart, and dishes with a large amount of cooking wine.； If you are taking sedative and antispasmodic drugs at the same time, do not drink any medicated soup to soothe the nerves and nourish the brain. Otherwise, the effects of the drugs will be superimposed and may inhibit breathing. You must be more careful about this.

In fact, after all is said and done, the core of tetanus treatment is always timely debridement, antitoxin injection, and spasm control. Diet is only a small auxiliary item, and there is no need to make it more stressful than the treatment. I usually explain to the patients’ families that as long as they comply with the three principles of “no irritation when eating, no strenuous chewing, and no conflict with medicine,” you can eat whatever you like in moderation. If you enjoy eating, you will recover faster. If you are really unsure, just ask the bedside doctor. Don’t blindly follow the folk remedies on the Internet.