Postings by Deborah Copaken Kogan of her 4 year old son, while being checked for strep throat, caused a flurry of concerned comments, then as his condition got worse the author posted more pictures, any help would be good, as the still mystery illness gripped her son threateningly.
Luckily her postings on Facebook brought help, as a friend called saying "I hope you'll excuse me for butting in, but you have to get to the hospital. Now! My son Max had had the exact same symptoms, and was hospitalized for Kawasaki disease, a rare and sometimes fatal auto-immune disorder that attacks the coronary arteries surrounding the heart, the longer you wait, the worse the damage."
Another auto immune disease where the body perceives an attack and inevitably damages it's self.
Kawasaki disease can be fatal, if unchecked it causes inflammation in the arteries though out the body, in particularly the danger lies in the effect it has the arteries around the heart. It starts with a high fever, then continues into several other stages that can include large pealing chunks of skin, joint pain, diarrhea, bloodshot eyes, the list goes on.
The moral of the story being, if you or your loved ones, have strange symptoms that mystify doctors, post it on your social network. May be your friends have seen it before and they can save you a lot of time and heartache, with suggestions as to what it could be. Then you can take that information to the doctors.
Last year, the American Medical Association adopted social media policy guidelines, which encourage doctors to do things like take advantage of privacy settings and maintain the "appropriate" boundaries of the patient-physician relationship on the web.
TrendNews
.
No comments:
Post a Comment