What is radiation sickness?

Answer 1

*Acute physical illness caused by exposure to doses of ionizing radiation large enough to cause toxic reactions. This can include symptoms such as nausea, diarrhea, headache, lethargy, and fever.
*Radiation poisoning, also called "radiation sickness", is a form of damage to organ tissue due to excessive exposure to ionizing radiation. The term is generally used to refer to acute problems caused by a large dosage of radiation in a short period. Many of the symptoms of radiation poisoning occur as ionizing radiation interferes with cell division. This interference allows for treatment of cancer cells; such cells are among the fastest-dividing in the body, and will be killed by a radiation dose that adjacent normal cells are likely to survive.
*Strictly speaking the correct name for "radiation sickness" is acute radiation syndrome as described by the CDC.
*A chronic radiation syndrome does exist but is very uncommon; this has been observed among workers in early radium source production sites and in the early days of the Soviet nuclear program. A short exposure can result in acute radiation syndrome; chronic radiation syndrome requires a prolonged high level of exposure.

*The use of radionuclides in science and industry is strictly regulated in most countries (in the U.S. by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission). In the event of an accidental or deliberate release of radioactive material, either evacuation or sheltering in place will be the recommended measures.

For more pl. visit:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiation_poisoning

Answer 2

This is an important question. Radiation sickness can come from sources that emit radiation. If you are an X-Ray technician and not properly protected you can become radiated and possibly develop malignancies. Another source is the sun. Too much sunburn is a form of radiation sickness that overexposure to the sun is known to produce malignancies as well. I talked to a veteran who was diagnosed with radiation sickness. He said that he doesn't feel 'normal'. There are changes in his comfort and sleeps more than before. I hope this answers your question.

Answer 3

That is a good question. Radiation sickness is not generally well understood by the public, yet there term is commonly used, or I should say, mis-used in Hollywood films and the written media.

When talking about radiation and its effects, we measure the amount received using a unit system called dose (radiation dose), with the unit called rem. As an example, from natural radiation sources, we receive roughly 0.200 - 0.300 rem per year, (or 200 - 300 mrem) depending on where you live. The other important factor in radiation effects is time. As you can imagine, receiving a dose of 100 rem in a minute is worse than receiving it over 100 years. Let me explain a little about what radiation does to help explain that.

What radiation does is cause atoms to loose electrons, being ionized. if this happens in a body, these ions can do damage in cells. If only a little damage happens, like from natural background, being a low dose over a long period of time, the body repairs the damage done. However, as you increase the dose and short the time it is received, the cells in your body can not repair all the damage. At that time, they will have a good chance of dying. Even this is not a big deal, we have trillion of cells in our body, and millions die every day. But if the dose is very large over a short period of time (acute), enough sensitive cells can be killed that it will effect the well being of the body.

This is what radiation sickness is. The some of the most sensitive cells in a human are the active cells in the lining of the intestine (called crypt cells), white blood cells, and the cells that make red and white blood cells. With enough damage done to your intestine lining, you will feel sick, maybe vomit, have nausea, not be able to absorb water, become dehydrated, etc. This is what is typically called radiation sickness, the nausea, vomiting, overall sick feeling from a high dose of radiation.

Returning to dose, to get this type of sickness, you have to receive a radiation dose in the range of 100-250 rem, in a short period, say in a day or less. The cases of radiation sickness that we do see are normally in this range, over a few minutes. In accidents, you have to have something very big to cause this high of dose. Some of the people who died at Chernobyl received this high of dose. It is rare outside of major accidents and radiation cancer therapy, most occupational doses for radiation workers are well below 1 rem per year. It is rare for anyone to get above 5 rem per year (the legal limit for dose for workers in the US). We have some good info on this at: http://www.physics.isu.edu/radinf/ look under General section..

Answer 4

Sickness induced by exposure to radiation.

Answer 5

Sickness depends upon the severity of radiation exposure. It can turn to smoke within minutes as in the case of an atomic explosion in Japan to prolonged sickness involving cancer of severe and deadly kind.

Answer 6

alergy and some kind of irritating felling when we expose to radiation like sunlight uvrays