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Within one month, two Northshore kids diagnosed with rare disease; one did not survive
http://www.wwltv.com ^ | 3/8/17 | Ashley Rodrigue, WWL

Posted on 03/08/2017 5:24:24 PM PST by BBell

SLIDELL -- Charles "Dooey" De Silva III was an outgoing six-year-old with a love for fun and a knack for karate.

In mid-January, a nagging fever, at times as high as 106, led him to the hospital in Slidell. He was sent home with antibiotics, but the fever didn't budge.

"He just had pain," said De Silva's aunt, Venus McCoy, "He said everything hurt - everything."

That's when doctors suggested to take him to Children's Hospital to be checked out for something his family had never heard of before.

"Kawasaki Disease is the most common arteritis of childhood and arteritis means inflammation of the arteries," said Dr. Sam Lucas, Chief of Pediatric Cardiology at Ochsner Hospital for Children.

Doctors say Kawasaki is not common. Lucas says the prevalence of the disease is significantly higher in people with east Asian descent and is usually seen during Spring and early Summer. In East Asia, up to 1 percent of the population will get Kawasaki. In the U.S., only a tenth of that, around two to five people in every thousand, will be diagnosed. When it is seen here, it is usually in boys six months to a year old, though doctors say it has occurred at earlier and older ages. At this time, there's no known cause.

"It seems most likely, by a lot, that Kawasaki Disease is an abnormal immune response to common infections," said Lucas, "And the premise there is that many or most of us are infected with common illnesses like adenovirus that causes the common cold, but only very few of us, because of genetic determinants, react to that badly and have these problems that are arteritis."

There are signs, though doctors say they can be misleading, often delaying the critical need for an urgent diagnosis. Red flags should start with

(Excerpt) Read more at wwltv.com ...


TOPICS: Health/Medicine
KEYWORDS: kawasakidisease; northshore; raredisease
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To: GailA

I’m sorry for your lose. It must have been heartbreaking. RIP young Soul.


21 posted on 03/10/2017 9:43:59 PM PST by BBell (calm down and eat your sandwiches)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 20 | View Replies]


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