For people that have been exposed to high level of radiation, after the initial bouts of symptoms why does it look like they seem to be in recovery but in reality are not. The next stage with the symptoms coming back worst and eventually dying?
In: Biology
Many of the symptoms of illness are products of the body’s attempts to fight off the problem. For example if someone gets a viral or bacterial infection they will develop a fever, an increase in body temperature which is uncomfortable and can even be life-threatening. This response though is evolved as it usually helps reduce the growth rate of the invaders and gives the body crucial time to develop a defensive response.
If the body is losing the fight it will at some point be unable to mount an effective defense. Failure of various systems of the body will mean that those responses that would serve to fight the illness no longer take place; someone who is still infected might stop having a fever but that doesn’t mean they are recovered.
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It depends on the dose. At high enough doses, there is no latency period because your cells have been completely destroyed. At lower doses that are still fatal, what’s happening is that the radiation has destroyed the DNA of cells, making them unable to replicate. These cells will continue to live for some time, but once they start dying, there’s nothing to replace them. This becomes apparent as rapidly diving cells begin to die. For example, damaged bone marrow is unable to make new blood cells, which results in profound anemia, low white cell count, and low platelet count as new cells are not made to replace ones that have died. This can lead to rapid onset of major infections and uncontrollable bleeding as there are no white cells to fight infections and no platelets to clot wounds.
Cells of the gastrointestinal system also divide rapidly, so gastrointestinal symptoms are usually early and severe. As the cells that line the digestive tract die, they slough off and are expelled as vomit and diarrhea. The body is then unable to absorb any nutrients as the digestive system is essentially dead. This also allows the bacteria that live in our digestive tracts to enter our bloodstream and cause sepsis.
Essentially, it’s that at certain doses, the radiation exposure isn’t enough to kill cells right away but is enough to make them unable to replicate. Once they die, which can take days or weeks, the latent phase ends and profound illness begins.
This can happen with any kind of burn. This is frequent in severe electrical injuries. The tissue may be intact enough to deal with inflammation. But if it’s not intact enough to do all the vital things, eventually it will die.
It’s like asking why some cities recover from a natural disaster and some not, even though both clear their roads.
It depends on which sub-parts survive and which don’t.
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