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part of the article reads:
A culture of the patient’s spinal fluid had revealed a fungus, Aspergillus. The patient was so ill that he could no longer communicate, so Dr. Pettit spoke to the family.
“I told them it was a very unusual cause of meningitis in healthy people, and that we needed to try to figure out how he got this infection,” she said.
Had he done anything unusual in the weeks before he became ill? she asked.
The answer alarmed her. He had had a steroid injection in his spinal area to relieve back pain — a common treatment, administered to millions of people in the United States every year.
Dr. Pettit called the State Health Department.
She is now credited with being the clinician who recognized the “index case” in what has become a frightening outbreak of meningitis that has killed two people and sickened 12 others who also received steroid injections in their spines for pain. Doctors suspect that the steroid medicine was contaminated with the fungus. The meningitis does not spread from person to person.
part of the article reads:
A culture of the patient’s spinal fluid had revealed a fungus, Aspergillus. The patient was so ill that he could no longer communicate, so Dr. Pettit spoke to the family.
“I told them it was a very unusual cause of meningitis in healthy people, and that we needed to try to figure out how he got this infection,” she said.
Had he done anything unusual in the weeks before he became ill? she asked.
The answer alarmed her. He had had a steroid injection in his spinal area to relieve back pain — a common treatment, administered to millions of people in the United States every year.
Dr. Pettit called the State Health Department.
She is now credited with being the clinician who recognized the “index case” in what has become a frightening outbreak of meningitis that has killed two people and sickened 12 others who also received steroid injections in their spines for pain. Doctors suspect that the steroid medicine was contaminated with the fungus. The meningitis does not spread from person to person.
I have had so many of those injestions I cannot count them. Finally several years back I just flately refused to have another. So many things can go wrong and I didn't like the odds.
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