Scare Tactics
Lucy Barnes
Lucy Barnes
Lucy Barnes
A handful of Infectious Disease doctors and their supporters continue to try to persuade others that it is dangerous to treat Lyme disease patients with antibiotics! They often cite one case in which a patient died as the reason to deny treatment to countless people suffering from one or more chronic tickborne infections.
In truth, there was a case in which a Lyme patient did die, but only after suffering complications from falling out of her unattended hospital bed and breaking the picc line in her arm, which later became infected. The patient was not being treated for Lyme disease and was not under the care of a LLMD, but you wouldn't know it by the way the case is touted as being the reason antibiotic treatment for Lyme is dangerous.
As we all know, complications for treatment of any medical conditions has its risks, as is noted below. Using the infectious disease doctors theory on not treating because it is dangerous, no one should be treated for any disease.
QUOTE- "A recent study of 221 patients with 279 PICCs at a tertiary children's hospital in Israel found an overall complication rate of 37% necessitating removal: 13.6% were removed for infectious complications, 13.6% were removed for mechanical problems, and 9.3% were accidentally dislodged.5 Older studies found complication rates from 4% to 29%.6,7 Another uncommon but serious risk is that of fracture and embolization of the catheter; in a study of 1650 PICCs by Chow et al8, 11 children required an invasive procedure to retrieve an embolized line fragment."
QUOTE- "Ceftriaxone-induced autoimmune hemolytic anemia has been reported 27 times (including our case) since 1991 (PubMed online search; limits: English; terms: ceftriaxone and hemolysis, ceftriaxone and renal failure).11,–,34 Of these 27 patients, 63% were younger than 18 years. Among the pediatric group there was a 47% mortality rate, and 1 additional patient had severe neurologic sequelae. At least 8 children experienced acute renal failure; 5 of the 8 had a fatal outcome. Almost one-third of the 17 pediatric patients had underlying sickle cell disease, and 4 had HIV. It is unclear whether the underlying disease processes contributed to the development of anticeftriaxone antibodies and hemolysis, if repeated exposure to the drug was important, or both.14"
To read the article click here.
Lucy Barnes