I Have Multiple Sclerosis and I think I have Listeria from food that I ate A few weeks ago & My Doctor retired without any warning a week ago. I need to know how dangerous this could be and what do you think I should do?
I saw my dr. on feb 7th with the tail end of a cold I could not get rid of and she gave me a prescription for Amoxicillin 500mg 3 x a day, I got it filled but never used it because I did start feeling better after I saw her.
I ate some delezza Belgian Custard cream filled Mini Eclairs over a 3 day period – approx. april 25-28 and on april 4th I started feeling bad a slight fever and diarrhea off and on for a few days (I thought it was just the cold again) but then I started aching all over like someone beat me up and I’ve had a Severe Head Ache that will not go away no matter how many asprin. My Neck is super stiff and my back hurts, I am Salivating a lot because I keep feeling like I am going to throw-up, but never do.
What is funny – I liked these eclairs that I had eaten before any of this started and my husband was feeling so bad for me – he said he would get me more & he couldn’t find any. We got online looking to see who had any and saw that they have been recalled because of Listeria. When we looked up all the symptoms, I have most of them, So I started taking the Amoxicillin that my dr. gave me a prescription for (that I hadn’t taken for my cold) I started taking Amoxicillin 500mg 3 x a day on april 18th, But I feel worse – I keep loosing my balance and I can’t think very clearly. I am just worried because I have MS and I take Ampyra for it, I have low Thyroid and take Synthriod and Losartan Potassium – Hctz for Blood pressure.
Could you Please Tell me What to Do? Many Thanks, (—)
This relates to my mother, an 89 year old lady in the UK. Confined to a wheelchair for many years (ostensibly multiple sclerosis but questionable), and having a urostomy stoma, 5 years ago she went into septic shock following UTI which, though she survived and recovered brought out/forward vascular dementia.
The progression of her dementia has been slow enough to be imperceptible except in retrospect. 2 weeks ago I became aware that she had “suddenly” become almost totally non talkative, and what few words of intelligible English she had till now retained had almost disappeared. I feared and suspect this was a step change progression in her dementia. A hesitant and shaky use of her arms/hands when eating also became apparent. The possibility she may have another UTI as an alternative explanation did occur to me and her talkative interaction did appear to gradually improve over the following week. However last Thursday the urine in her night drainage bag was full of material and blood red..this quickly cleared but the following day mucous or pus was in her urine. Both consistent with a UTI.
District nurses took her readings and found her blood pressure was normal but her temperature was undetectably low so called out the doctor. He found the same readings and noting her cloudy urostomy bag had her admitted to hospital on suspicion of Urosepsis on the Friday evening.
She was given intravenous antibiotics and fluids for a few days, and seemed generally “normal” during most of her stay (though I noted each day her forehead still felt cool to the touch). By Wednesday we were told all her readings were fine and they were sending her home..though she appeared to me to be more ill than she had been to that point. She came home on Thursday (48 hours ago) with a course of oral amoxycillin. Her use of her arms remains painfully poor and is basically being spoon fed. Friday morning I noticed a large swelling and bruising on the shin of her left leg – not having seen her leg for over a week there was no way to determine if it was like this in hospital or had been banged in teh ambulance…or was a symptom of infection or disease. The doctor was called out and confirmed it was a bruise, not a thrombosis or clot. (It doesn’t appear to cause her any pain and is not warm to the touch) Later that day nurses again took her temperature during a routine visit and found it was still unnaturally low.
By this point I had read online that slow, uncoordinated arm movements and weakness can be a symptom of hypothermia itself (I left the heating on over night and she felt normal this morning though seems to be cooling again) I’ve also now read that unexplained bruising can be a symptom of sepsis. So I’m naturally very confused that all these things may or may not be connected, or has she simply deteriorated?
For the last 24 hours she’s mostly slept. When woken last evening she spent over an hour repeating meaningless words (“oh come on” ) over and over. Progressing dementia …or delirium? This morning and again this afternoon she’s only taken a few bites of food before refusing any more then going back to sleep. Her outward breath is very audible. When she does wake or eat she chokes or coughs a lot…again all this is new, but I understand consistent with advanced dementia…yet as I say I can’t help wondering especially given the temperature issue and possibly the bruising, if she does in fact have sepsis after all despite the hospital tests which deemed her fit for discharge.
The medical details on her hospital discharge notes read as follows
For “MSU Microscopy” it reads WBCs : <20 x10^6/L RBCs : Not raised x10^6/L Epithelial cells: Scanty Comment: Culture - No Significant Bacterial Growth
For Blood Culture it reads"Culture negative after 72 hours incubation. A further report will only be issued on culture of a significant organism"
Under Clinical course at the bottom of the page it says "Treated as urosepsis. Normal wcc . No urine investigations suggesting UTI. CXR - poor inspiration no real evidence of pneumonia.
So is all of this the consequence of a progression in her mental decline? Or are the changes in her more likely to be the cause of still present sepsis, pneumonia , or some other condition? Without any new symptoms and her blood pressure, heart etc consistently reading fine, there's not an awful lot to take back to the GP. But something is clearly not right.
I’m a 19 year old male , take no medication. Could I still have multiple sclerosis if I tested negative? So about a year ago I was having vision problems in my right eye and decided to see an eye doctor. When he took a look at my eye he saw swelling of the optic nerve and sent me to a neurologist. After getting a bunch of tests done they diagnosed me with optic neuritis and had no idea what caused it. Optic neuritis is sometimes an early stage of ms so they sent me to the ER to have an MRI and a blood test (not sure what for exactly it was along time ago) both tests came back negative. So it’s been almost a year and a couple months ago I’ve been having a lot of pain in my legs and a lot of muscle spasms way more than usual. I’ve also been feeling very depressed lately don’t exactly know why , but I’m usually a very happy guy. My leg pain occurs mostly when I’m laying or sitting down and it ranges from my upper/behind my knee to about mid-calf level and severity on a scale of 1-10 is about an 8. I’ve also been feeling very weak and extremely tired most of my days, and at times my left leg sometimes “gives out” but not entirely. I do experience some numbness /tingling but haven’t worried much about it just cause I thought my leg/hand falls asleep. I haven’t bothered to see a doctor about it because I feel I’m just going to waste money and it’s not going to be anything. I’m 19 years old and am worrying that the tests I had didn’t catch anything and wasn’t sure if I could still possibly have ms. Would appreciate some insight!
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