Posted on 08/27/2017 12:44:13 PM PDT by Yaelle
Anyone going to the tropics should consider getting a tetanus vaccine.
...
I have a better plan: I will avoid such places. Lots to see here in the continental USA.
I had a cousin that my family always said died of tetanus just before I was born, but his older brother just told me a couple of months ago that he thought our families were wrong, because his brother had other symptoms that meant it couldn’t have been tetanus or not just tetanus. He is positive his family inherited an autoimmune condition from the maternal side of the family that I don’t have, because he has also been plagued with that autoimmune condition most of his life.
At the end of the day, they sent my worsening friend home from the ER and said it wasn’t tetanus. But their only reasoning was that her jaw wasn’t locked up. Her neck has been semi paralyzed for a couple days. She is in a lot of pain. The regular docs don’t know what it is or how to treat it. She needs a specialist. Tetanus is difficult to dx sometimes, plus she may be just beginning. She had to practically force them to give her the vaccine which can still help, when exposed. Her family had to show them the CDC website where it’s highly recommended.
The sand fleas have caused tungiasis, a fertile female buried in her spine under her skin, for days now, producing eggs. She has every symptom of tetanus except the fever and jaw locked. They said at the he end of today that she did not have it because jaws aren’t locked. But clearly she has a secondary infection from the tungiasis and needs help fast. First action was o surgically remove the bug which they did not do.
She has found a specialist at UCLA and I hope she can get in to him tomorrow.
Any news on your dear friend?
She hasn’t been bending backwards, has she?
Sounds like very possibly that sand-flea egg is the issue. After all, it’s near her spine?
I personally know someone who survived.
A friend of mine (actually he was a friend of my father-in-law) was out at Lake Wenatchee, Washington years back. We were all camping/fishing, whatever.
Walking up one of those metal stairs into a camper he cut his foot pretty bad - bad enough to bleed like hell!
I said “You better get to a hospital, get it stitched up and get a tetanus shot”.
He just wrapped it in a towel and said “I don’t need no stinkin shot...” something like that, you get the idea.
He tells us all a story about years before that when he was in Chicago and got sick. Went to the doctor, who said take two aspirin and call me in the morning... he got sicker and sicker and ended up in the hospital in the emergency ward.
a day or so goes by and they DO NOT HAVE A CLUE! Even after blood tests!
Two doctors stick their heads in the door and one starts shrieking... THIS MAN HAS TETANUS! Get tetanus antitoxins immediately!
He was a Doctor Without Borders transplant from Korea, and had see it before.
John survived and was forever immune to it.
They’re not fleas, they’re “sand flies”. There’s plenty of medical info out there on the internet on how to treat it but your friend’s is the most serious I have ever heard about........
It was not a tetanus infection, it was parasitic in nature.........Just sayin......
I remember that a friend in grammar school had tetnus and talked about the seizures that she had.
She was a sort of slow 12 year old.
She is going to go to a specialist at UCLA for tropical diseases. She is taking 12 meds against the infestation of fleas internally but they are still internal and I will spare you the gory details. She may not have tetanus but she is definitely quite ill.
I never even knew about sand fleas before.
They are crustaceans , tiny crustaceans. And when I read about them online they are always in the feet. But she thought, being a California girl, that she could lie on a towel in the sand. We don’t have those things here. So she got them in her spine and they are all inside her now, internally. It’s really bad. She has muscles she can’t move, but apparently it isn’t lockjaw.
Yes, you are right. She’s been dx’ed and misdx’ed all the time. She’s on way too many meds. It isn’t tetanus, apparently, but it is running though her. I can’t wait for her to get to the tropical infectious specialist at UCLA next week. Poor thing.
The next time you watch "Survivor" when it's being filmed in the tropics, look at the legs of the contestants. They've got red welts all over them from the bites of the flies........
We tried all kinds of repellents and the only thing that came close to working was a product called "Cactus Juice". At the time they made a sunscreen and a skin moisturizer.........
And worse is that they can infest your body in all areas.... you don’t even want to know...
The sand fleas I see are not “tiny” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emerita_(genus). I think it’s better referred to as sand fly, which as a bug often is, are indeed very small https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandfly
Unless it’s possible a nymph “flea” burrowed in, but there is no discussion of them being a medical threat.
Also, watch the interchangeability of these names. Some people apparently call the “Sand fly” a “sand flea”, etc.
I would like to share with you my experience with this site which I have benefited greatly from https://flea-bites.com
Also the organic people are into it, but be not deceived, just because it's "organic" doesn't mean it won't hurt you.
Dress to cover up, use eye protection and a mask. Don't inhale it.
Spread it out where you intend to use it in such a way that you can come back later and pick it up with a shop vac, preferably one with a HEPA filter, and use a mask.
You will most likely have to search high and low find a place that will do only tetanus. You will also have to be persistent with specifics. The majority of “tetanus shots” are a multiple vaccination of Tdap.
https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/hcp/vis/vis-statements/tdap.html
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