Epiglottitis

Medical Topic of the Day: You lucky people got a topic suggested.  My friend Jen wants to know about Epiglottitis.  So Let's do this.

Off The Top of My Head:  Epiglottitis is the inflammation of your epiglottis.  Your epiglottis is a chunk of cartilage in your throat that prevents food from going into your trachea when you eat.  It does other stuff too but that is the main function.  But what causes it to get all hot and bothered?

That thing.

My Research Today:  Epiglottitis can be caused by many different bacterias most commonly strep and staph.  It is much less common today than it was 20 years ago.

Prior to 1990 the most common cause of epiglottitis was Haemophilus Influenzae or H. flu and also referred to as Hib.  Like you would expect H. flu is a type of bacterial influenzae but not the cause of influenza as it is not a virus.  Typically this bacteria lives in humans without causing disease, however, when it does rear it's head it can be serious.

This has nothing to do with epiglottitis.

Typical 5 year vaccinations cover H. flu.  Most epiglottitis cases involving H. flu effect children under the age of five years old.  Epiglottitis is very serious in children as the swelling can occlude the airway more easily as the trachea is smaller in diameter.  Past and present treatment for children with epiglottitis is intubation and antibiotic therapy until swelling subsides.

In adults the treatment is more forgiving.  Usually just antibiotics and observation.  After the H. flu vaccine was developed cases of epiglottitis in industrialized countries dropped significantly.  It is more common to see epiglottitis in adults caused by strep these days.

Well I hope everyone enjoyed this informative and not fun post.  Have a good night.

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