jenni_blog (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
jenni_blog) wrote2011-09-06 05:12 pm
jenni_blog) wrote2011-09-06 05:12 pm
UNUSUAL AILMENTS REVISITED
In my last post on the typical things we see in the medical clinic and how boring they are day in and day out, I wrote my little story about something very unusual that occurred there a couple of weeks ago. These strange things don't happen very often, but when they do, we will remember them forever.
I have another strange story from a couple of years ago.
We have a long-time patient who is an older lady in her 60s who suffers from Crohn's disease. She has been in and out of hospital for most of her life, and I think because they know her so well at the local hospital, that it probably saved her.
This story that I am about to tell is not gory or shocking like the last one, but is very interesting in its own right. However, I will put the rest of it under a cut.
Yes, this patient became very ill one day while at home. Her husband rushed her to hospital and shortly after she passed into a coma. Very soon she was diagnosed with botulism poisoning. A team from the Health Department went into her house and scoured it for the culprit, taking out all the food and her medications as well. Someone from the Health Dept. called the office and spoke to me. He had discovered that she came to see us on a regular basis for Vitamin B12 shots and he told me that after checking with the Toronto Health Dept., that there had been a few cases of botulism in their jurisdiction as well, and coincidentally, all of these patients took B12 shots. Everyone thought that was the cause. The man I spoke to asked me to check the patient's files and give me all the dates when she had received her B12 injections, and the lot numbers on each bottle of the serum. Doctors have to write down in their charts the lot numbers on ALL vaccines and other injections that they administer to patients, by law. This way if a "bad" lot turns up, it can be identified easily.
Okay, so as I said, we all thought the B12 serum was the guilty substance. But NO, it wasn't. Upon seizing the medication from all the botulism patients and testing it, it was found that the vitamin B12 was clean. So the Health Dept. went back to the drawing board . Eventually it was discovered that another thing the botulism patients had in common was Crohn's. Which is why they took B12 shots. But it WASN"T the B12 that caused the botulism poisoning. So what was it?
Well, it seems that all of these patients shopped in health food stores because it is important for Crohn's sufferers to eat good, healthy food. However, there is a lot of unpasteurized food sold in health food stores, because it is thought that by being more 'natural', these foods are better for you. Which a lot of them are. But our patient and the others had all eaten unpasteurized peanut butter, and that was what caused them to get sick. Unpasteurized peanut butter then went immediately on the list of foods that Crohn's sufferers should not eat.
Our patient remained in a coma for eight months. That's EIGHT MONTHS. She eventually made a miraculous recovery, because she regained her faculties, can hear, see and think like she did before. But her hair went completely white while she was in hospital, and she cannot walk on her own anymore. She gets around with the help of a walker and goes to physiotherapy once or twice a week.
Unfortunately, some of the other botulism victims weren't so lucky and didn't survive. It is a very hard thing to overcome, but if one is a fighter, one can recover. And it is very nice for us to have our patient still with us, and in great spirits. This story had a GOOD ending.
:)
I have another strange story from a couple of years ago.
We have a long-time patient who is an older lady in her 60s who suffers from Crohn's disease. She has been in and out of hospital for most of her life, and I think because they know her so well at the local hospital, that it probably saved her.
This story that I am about to tell is not gory or shocking like the last one, but is very interesting in its own right. However, I will put the rest of it under a cut.
Yes, this patient became very ill one day while at home. Her husband rushed her to hospital and shortly after she passed into a coma. Very soon she was diagnosed with botulism poisoning. A team from the Health Department went into her house and scoured it for the culprit, taking out all the food and her medications as well. Someone from the Health Dept. called the office and spoke to me. He had discovered that she came to see us on a regular basis for Vitamin B12 shots and he told me that after checking with the Toronto Health Dept., that there had been a few cases of botulism in their jurisdiction as well, and coincidentally, all of these patients took B12 shots. Everyone thought that was the cause. The man I spoke to asked me to check the patient's files and give me all the dates when she had received her B12 injections, and the lot numbers on each bottle of the serum. Doctors have to write down in their charts the lot numbers on ALL vaccines and other injections that they administer to patients, by law. This way if a "bad" lot turns up, it can be identified easily.
Okay, so as I said, we all thought the B12 serum was the guilty substance. But NO, it wasn't. Upon seizing the medication from all the botulism patients and testing it, it was found that the vitamin B12 was clean. So the Health Dept. went back to the drawing board . Eventually it was discovered that another thing the botulism patients had in common was Crohn's. Which is why they took B12 shots. But it WASN"T the B12 that caused the botulism poisoning. So what was it?
Well, it seems that all of these patients shopped in health food stores because it is important for Crohn's sufferers to eat good, healthy food. However, there is a lot of unpasteurized food sold in health food stores, because it is thought that by being more 'natural', these foods are better for you. Which a lot of them are. But our patient and the others had all eaten unpasteurized peanut butter, and that was what caused them to get sick. Unpasteurized peanut butter then went immediately on the list of foods that Crohn's sufferers should not eat.
Our patient remained in a coma for eight months. That's EIGHT MONTHS. She eventually made a miraculous recovery, because she regained her faculties, can hear, see and think like she did before. But her hair went completely white while she was in hospital, and she cannot walk on her own anymore. She gets around with the help of a walker and goes to physiotherapy once or twice a week.
Unfortunately, some of the other botulism victims weren't so lucky and didn't survive. It is a very hard thing to overcome, but if one is a fighter, one can recover. And it is very nice for us to have our patient still with us, and in great spirits. This story had a GOOD ending.
:)
no subject
no subject
no subject
I thought it was going to end up being the luncheon meat thing that happened a few years ago. Did they figure out why it was just people with Crohn's? It is probably very dangerous for very young children to have unpasteurized peanut butter too!
Natural is becoming a dirty word to me! You hear it all the time working in a pharmacy in regards to health supplements and people don't realize that these things can interact with their meds and cause some very serious side effects :(
no subject
Yes! Just because something is natural doesn't make it safe! You still have to watch out for the combinations between vitamins and medications, for instance. :(
no subject
It was definitely a miraculous recovery. Eight months in a coma is very scary. We all thought we'd lose her. :/
no subject
no subject
no subject
no subject
I think it took quite a while...like a couple of months before they discovered the peanut butter was the culprit! :(
no subject
What I don't get is this: If pasteurization was invented to prevent people from getting ill by the germs that are naturally in milk and other types of foodstuffs, then why do some people think it's not necessary to pasteurize so-called "health food"? *facepalm*