Thread: CA:E. coli patient hospitalized 3 weeks

E. coli patient hospitalized 3 weeks
Rare strain of bacteria harmed Simi Valley woman's small blood vessels, doctors said
By Tom Kisken (Contact)
Friday, July 25, 2008


Rob Varela / Star staff Dr. Niti Peruvemba examines Laura Comer of Simi Valley on Tuesday as Comer's daughter, Caitlin, waits. Doctors say the food poisoning was isolated and shouldn't cause alarm.


Laura Comer spent three weeks in the hospital. Suspect plasma was flushed out of her body and replaced with fresh quantities. Seven doctors treated her, some of them quoting mortality rates.

All because of something she ate.

The 58-year-old Simi Valley woman was diagnosed with a rare strain of the E. coli bacteria, which caused a toxin to be produced and clogged her small blood vessels. After 11 days in the intensive care unit of Los Robles Hospital & Medical Center in Thousand Oaks, she was deemed well enough on Saturday to return home to her husband, daughter, three cats and two dogs.

"It was pretty scary at one point, at a few points," she said. "My body was pretty much a mess."

Doctors believe the food poisoning was isolated and shouldn't cause alarm. They don't know what caused the disease, saying only the strain is often linked to ground beef.

The bacterial strain can incubate for several days, so Comer is left wondering about everything from restaurants to her own kitchen. She once worked in the broadcast industry and now spends her time gardening and doting on her pets. Her focus had been on supporting her husband, Chris, who is being treated for cancer.

But on the last Wednesday of June, she developed fever, diarrhea that turned bloody and nausea.

Two days later, she was in the emergency room. Tests confirmed she had a strain known as E. coli O157:H7, said Dr. Ramesh Nathan, an infectious disease specialist. The strain is sometimes linked to outbreaks of food poisoning that get national attention.

"I was surprised, but it made sense with the way I felt," Comer said. "At home, I just kind of holed up in my room like a bear in the cave. My stomach was swollen. I was all swollen, too, and yellow."

More than 200 food-borne illnesses are reported to public health officials in Ventura County every year. But food poisoning related to the kind of E. coli diagnosed in Comer are rare, with only one other case this year in January.

Can be life threatening'

The bacteria by itself isn't dangerous.

"Everybody has E. coli in their gut, in their intestines, and everyone has it in their poop. It lives in peaceful coexistence with us," said Dr. Robert Levin, the county's public health officer.

But the strain diagnosed in Comer can develop into a condition called hemolytic uremic syndrome. It can release a pathogen and create blood clots, cutting off blood flow to the kidney.

That's what happened to Comer, doctors said.

"I don't think her life was ever truly in danger, but this disease can be life threatening. If it's not treated, this can be very nasty," said Dr. Ashwin Kashyap, a blood disease specialist from Thousand Oaks.

She received blood transfusions and treatment in which a donor's plasma was infused into her.

She was hooked up to different machines with tubes in her neck for the plasma. It was a sight her family will have a hard time shaking.

"I just don't want it to happen to anyone else. I wish people had been warned more ahead of time," said daughter Caitlin Comer. "It seems like something could have been done earlier."

Kidneys start to recover

While her mother was in the hospital, Caitlin Comer learned of another Simi Valley woman who was reportedly diagnosed with a similar strain. But officials at Simi Valley Hospital, where the woman was said to be treated, said they had no confirmed culture tests of E. coli.

When public health officials have more than one report, they work like detectives to identify possible common sources. But health officer Levin said reports of E. coli O157:H7 are almost isolated. He said people are justified in worrying if they develop symptoms after they know they've eaten the same food as someone else diagnosed with the bacterial strain.

Laura Comer is relieved to be back home and on the way to recovery. Her kidneys have started to recover, though doctors say they are still at only about 60 percent of full efficiency.

"I will continue to heal over the next few months, but I'm glad to be alive," she said.

http://tinyurl.com/6xnco9

Never do I remember any of this in my lifetime. Not to this degree. Not in this day and time where we know things and have the ability to test for them. Feel like I'm living back in the middle ages.

Almost every week... there is something else to worry about!!! This government is a TOTAL FAILURE!!!!!!!!!! President and his administration and the House and the Senate!!!! It is a disgrace! Most of them could care less about Americans these days... we are at the bottom of the list... IF we are even on the list anymore!!!!

Its time for Americans to CLEAN HOUSE!!!!!!

Crazybird--we know how to test for all this but with budget cuts and taking care of illegal alien's health needs first, there is little oomph to worry about foodstuffs (or toys) coming into our country. Hospitals are closing because they go bankrupt from all the illegals in emergency rooms. I am terrified whatever the next administratopm does (probably as much as this one did about illegals getting social and healthcare services). These folks will probably spend the rest of their lives paying off just one hospital bill if they had no insurance.

Crazybird--we know how to test for all this but with budget cuts and taking care of illegal alien's health needs first, there is little oomph to worry about foodstuffs (or toys) coming into our country.

I understand that for sure.....guess I get tired of hearing of things that happened in history out of ignorance....and here we are now and we KNOW now what to do and because of money they won't.....now it's not ignorance to blame anymore. It's one thing to not know, another to refuse to learn and another to have it all and just not do it. To me.....that's criminal and totally unacceptable.

I don't live a life of hope and happiness - it is a life of dread and death, daily.

It is surreal as if in shock or in a war zone.

GOD HELP US, AMERICANS BECOME BETTER PEOPLE THROUGH ALL THE PAIN WE ARE TOLERATING.

Originally Posted by vortex

Crazybird--we know how to test for all this but with budget cuts and taking care of illegal alien's health needs first, there is little oomph to worry about foodstuffs (or toys) coming into our country. Hospitals are closing because they go bankrupt from all the illegals in emergency rooms. I am terrified whatever the next administratopm does (probably as much as this one did about illegals getting social and healthcare services). These folks will probably spend the rest of their lives paying off just one hospital bill if they had no insurance.

Well said