Pandemic Prep…Proper Diagnosis
It is very important as school begins and as we send our children off to college that we all understand the importance of a correct diagnosis when we become ill this fall and winter. With a pandemic virus amongst us it is easy for medical professionals to assume our symptoms are the H1N1 flu. Please be careful and be responsible for your own care. If you feel you have received a poor diagnosis insist on testing. If your condition worsens insist on another visit to the doctor, and by all means if you display any of the symptoms referred to in our When to Go to the Hospital chart…go!
1. Charlotte Hartey was told she had swine flu over the phone by a local GP. She was prescribed Tamiflu but her condition deteriorated and she was admitted to the hospital on July 29 where she died two days later after her lungs collapsed when bacteria overwhelmed her immune system.
A post-mortem found Charlotte, from Oswestry, Shropshire, died from natural causes, originally, tonsillitis.
2. Two-year-old Georgia Keeling died from meningitis after being misdiagnosed over the phone and by a paramedic. Her parents were repeatedly told she didn’t need to go to hospital and she was given Tamiflu and paracetamol.
Salesman Paul Sewell, 21, and his wife Tasha, 22, from Norwich, claimed medics had diagnosed her before they looked at her.
3. Mother-of-three Jasvir Gill, 48, of Leicester, also died this month days after being misdiagnosed with swine flu.
She began suffering from a sore throat and vomiting and was told to take Tamiflu in a telephone diagnosis.
Around 12 hours later she had a heart attack and died from blood poisoning caused by meningitis.
4. Rosie Lloyd was suffering from classic symptoms of appendicitis, including a stomach ache, sickness and pains along one side of her body.
But when her mother Lisa, 38, rang an out-of-hours GP service to report her daughter’s symptoms a trained doctor said Rosie was suffering from swine flu.
The medic told the family not to go to hospital and said a doctor would not be able to come out and see her.
As Rosie’s condition deteriorated, Mrs Lloyd decided to follow her gut instinct and defy medical advice by rushing her daughter to hospital.
It was only after the operation that a pediatric surgeon told Mrs Lloyd how her daughter’s condition had nearly become fatal.
5. Over the last several weeks, “at least seven college students” in West Virginia, Pennsylvania and Ohio have become sick with meningitis according to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. A freshman at West Virginia University, recently died from the illness, and the University of Pennsylvania has reported four cases in the last two months; one Pennsylvania student is still in the hospital. Montana State University also reported a case of meningitis this week.
Meningitis is an infection that inflames the lining around the brain, and when certain bacteria cause the disease, it can be deadly. The symptoms, which can include a stiff neck, headache and fever, can appear suddenly.
Having the flu may make a person more likely to get meningitis or septicemia, which is a blood infection, the Irish Times explained.
“Battling the flu can affect someone’s natural immunity and may make them more vulnerable to infection with these bugs. The very young, the over-65 or those with chronic illness may be particularly at risk,” said Suzanne Cotter, a public health and medicine specialist at Ireland’s national Health Protection Surveillance Centre, in an interview with the Irish Times.
The other type of meningitis, viral, is more common and usually not fatal, NINDS says. It can also be transmitted through saliva or other secretions, or by touching an infected surface. Besides the fever, headache and stiff neck, a person with meningitis could also have flu-like symptoms “that develop over 1-2 days,” according to NINDS.
JOIN OUR YAHOO GROUP TODAY!
Yahoo group:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/TotallyReady/
Yahoo group sign up:
http://groups.yahoo.com/invite/TotallyReady?email=cjnicolaysen@gmail.com&iref=pezjZw2zRwSGcMDB_gFIyucl-Oc
Read more:
These stories are such good reminders to all of us. I feel so much more secure with the knowledge we have gained from this blog!
HOW SCARY! I think there is a lot to be said for following one’s intuition in situations like these. Medical professionals may be so bogged down in the coming months that a misdiagnosis could easily be made.
I am loving the tips from your yahoo group!
Here in West Australia I know of many people who have had sick family members with possible H1N1 but testing is NOT being done because of the backlog of tests & overload to the system. We are urged to get urgent medical help if needed – most cases here have been mild but not all – 20 deaths & not all from those with pre-existing conditions. Some people have been tested as positive & the results not given so they have gone out & mixed in the community thinking they were ok. We definitely need to be vigilant & make sure our families get the medical attention they need ! Thank you for your information & warnings.
So much hype on the ‘swine flu’, although with good intentions (?), has unfortunately backfired in some cases, as these examples show. It will be interesting to see how it all plays out this winter.
In Louisiana, we have been instructed to ASSUME H1N1, when differentiating it from the regular seasonal flu, because there seem to be more diagnosed cases of H1N1 around right now, as opposed to the other virus.
School started here three weeks ago, and they are already sending kids home sick. One class of 22 children had 13 sent home one day last week, some with fevers of 104!