3 ms·

> It was only after Ellie was offered a "last resort" analysis called metagenomics, that she was diagnosed with a rare bacterial infection which was cured with

by donatj 1y ago

> It was only after Ellie was offered a "last resort" analysis called metagenomics, that she was diagnosed with a rare bacterial infection which was cured with antibiotics. After five years they'd never tried a broad-spectrum antibiotic treatment? That's the real story here.

John23832 1y ago
What’s even worse is that leptospirosis is treated with doxycycline… the first line to pretty much all bacterial infections (with a cell wall). Even if you don’t know what the bacteria is, if you have a culture, do a resistance study.
- sigmoid10 1y ago
  The article literally says that all tests for infection came back negative. It is not said explicitly, but this heavily implies that she had negative cultures (not uncommon for leptospirosis) and did not present with things like elevated white counts (also not uncommon for this pathogen - especially for superficial infections). The article also clearly says they (mis-)diagnosed it as autoimmune disease and treated with steroids, which is pretty much the worst thing you can do in that case. Leptospirosis goes away most of the time without any treatment if you have a working immune system. So if you really need a contrarian takeaway from this editorial, it's that doctors are still sometimes more dangerous than diseases (which used to be true in general up until about 100 or so years ago).
  - John23832 1y ago
    I was skimming precoffee
phkahler 1y ago
Yeah I came to quote this: "All tests for infection came back negative and it was assumed she had an autoimmune condition." They never confirmed the autoimmune hypothesis but tried to treat it. What about the hypothesis of "it's some other infection our tests don't catch"? Antibiotics are a fairly simple thing to try. She got cataracts due to that mistake. Now that eye doesn't have dynamic focus.
shepherdjerred 1y ago
That was my takeaway too. Such a simple solution, though I understand over-prescribing antibiotics is not ideal

by donatj 1y ago

John23832 1y ago

What’s even worse is that leptospirosis is treated with doxycycline… the first line to pretty much all bacterial infections (with a cell wall). Even if you don’t know what the bacteria is, if you have a culture, do a resistance study.

sigmoid10 1y ago
The article literally says that all tests for infection came back negative. It is not said explicitly, but this heavily implies that she had negative cultures (not uncommon for leptospirosis) and did not present with things like elevated white counts (also not uncommon for this pathogen - especially for superficial infections). The article also clearly says they (mis-)diagnosed it as autoimmune disease and treated with steroids, which is pretty much the worst thing you can do in that case. Leptospirosis goes away most of the time without any treatment if you have a working immune system. So if you really need a contrarian takeaway from this editorial, it's that doctors are still sometimes more dangerous than diseases (which used to be true in general up until about 100 or so years ago).
- John23832 1y ago
  I was skimming precoffee

phkahler 1y ago

Yeah I came to quote this: "All tests for infection came back negative and it was assumed she had an autoimmune condition." They never confirmed the autoimmune hypothesis but tried to treat it. What about the hypothesis of "it's some other infection our tests don't catch"? Antibiotics are a fairly simple thing to try. She got cataracts due to that mistake. Now that eye doesn't have dynamic focus.

shepherdjerred 1y ago

That was my takeaway too. Such a simple solution, though I understand over-prescribing antibiotics is not ideal