Originally Posted by neecy

Actually - to the medical community sometimes the symptoms are so close-linked they make mistakes. I'm a perfect example - when I had bacterial meningitis when I was a child, my family doctor was out of town. The guy I had to see told my Mom that I had the flu and to take me back home. Mom managed to track down our family doctor and called him because my fever kept going up and I started getting delirious. That was an extra 12 hours that I could have been treated/on antibiotics/whatever that was missed. I lapsed into a coma (that lasted 3 weeks) while in the ambulance taking me to the hospital 100 miles away.

So I just wanted to point out - even doctors can mistake the symptoms of meningitis during its onset.