Ebola Virus Mutates On Entry Into United States. Responds To Antibiotics
Atlanta, GA - The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is reporting two American aid workers who contracted Ebola hemorrhagic fever while treating others in West Africa have started responding to treatment with antibiotics. "Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine Ebola would respond to antibiotics," Dr. Feldor Baldink, a public health physician with the CDC, said in a statement Sunday. Dr. Kent Brantley and Nancy Writebol were flown urgently back to the United States and transferred to Emory University, one of just a handful of American medical centers that are specially equipped to do nothing...
Source: The Happy Hospitalist - August 3, 2014 Category: Internists and Doctors of Medicine Authors: Tamer Mahrous Source Type: blogs
Recovering at Home
They let me out of the hospital this noon, and I like being with my loved ones. I feel a little better than yesterday, but the regimen is about the same at home as it has been in the hospital. Levaquin 750 mg once daily, probiotics to mediate the effect of the Levaquin on the stomach, lots of sleep.
I'm pretty sure that the pneumonia is viral, not bacterial, because it has responded so slowly to three different antibiotics. Nevertheless I'm taking the Levaquin, despite its risk to the Achilles tendon, in case it really is a virulent bacterium.
Right now my temp is generally around normal, which is a definite...
Source: Myeloma Hope - August 2, 2014 Category: Cancer Tags: pneumonia Source Type: blogs
Feeling a Little Better
Still in the hospital. My temperature seems to have stabilized near normal, I'm coughing a little less, and blood oxygen (without supplemental oxygen) is up in the 94% range. However, pulse rate and respiration rate are unchanged and much higher than normal, so the jury is still out.
For the medically inclined: I was started on a Z-Pak (azithromycin) Monday, then in the hospital they added a cephalosporin IV antibiotic Tuesday. By today (Thursday) we didn't see much progress, so the hospital doctor finally talked me into oral Levaquin, dropping both of the others. That dose was this noon , so it's ...
Source: Myeloma Hope - August 1, 2014 Category: Cancer Tags: pneumonia Source Type: blogs
Hospital Quality Measures: Value Based Purchasing 2.0 (The Funny Version).
For years, hospital quality measures have been tracked by private and government insurance programs to try and improve the healthcare services received by their beneficiaries. The most recent example is the Value-Based Purchasing Program (VBP) initiative by The Centers For Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS). How does CMS describe VBP?"Under the Program, CMS will make value-based incentive payments to acute care hospitals, based either on how well the hospitals perform on certain quality measures or how much the hospitals' performance improves on certain quality measures from their performance during a basel...
Source: The Happy Hospitalist - March 14, 2014 Category: Internists and Doctors of Medicine Authors: Tamer Mahrous Source Type: blogs
Top stories in health and medicine, March 12, 2014
From MedPage Today:
Docs Unprepared for Payment Reform. A pair of recent reports call into question the ability of physician practices to embrace health reform efforts.
Even a Few Drinks Tied to Poor Birth Outcomes. Women who consumed low levels of alcohol before conception and during pregnancy were more likely to have adverse birth outcomes such as low birth centile, low birth weight, and premature birth than nondrinkers.
Can Antibiotics Trigger Arrhythmias?. Azithromycin and levofloxacin were both associated with elevated risks of death and serious cardiac arrhythmias during standard lengths of prescription.
HIV: More ...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - March 12, 2014 Category: Family Physicians Tags: News Heart Infectious disease OB/GYN Source Type: blogs
A Guide To: Levaquin
One of the newest antibiotics on the market, Levaquin is frequently prescribed by doctors. This guide offers basic information about the antibiotic.Contributor: Nicole M.Published: Nov 22, 2013 (Source: Most Recent Health Wellness - Associated Content)
Source: Most Recent Health Wellness - Associated Content - November 22, 2013 Category: Other Conditions Source Type: blogs
Quality and Safety Implications of Emergency Department Information Systems: ED EHR Systems Pose Serious Concerns, Report Says
A report "Quality and Safety Implications of Emergency Department Information Systems"appeared in the Oct. 2013 issue of "Annals of Emergency Medicine." It is available fulltext at http://www.annemergmed.com/article/S0196-0644%2813%2900506-4/fulltext, or in PDF via the tab, free as of this writing.First, a preamble: I once tried to alert a hospital where I'd trained decades before, Abington Memorial Hospital (http://www.amh.org/), of impediments to safe care I'd noted in their EHR's, predominantly their ED EHR. They did not listen. In fact, their response to my concerns was characterized by an appar...
Source: Health Care Renewal - October 8, 2013 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Tags: healthcare IT risk Abington Memorial Hospital postmarketing surveillance EDIS healthcare IT regulation healthcare IT safety Chris Jay Hoofnagle emergency department Source Type: blogs
Nerve Damage and Fluoroquinolone Antibiotics
By Diane Fennell
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is requiring updated labeling on fluoroquinolone antibiotics that includes a stronger warning of the drugs' potential to cause rapid, and potentially permanent, development of peripheral neuropathy.
Peripheral neuropathy, which affects up to 70% of people with diabetes, is a type of nerve damage that can cause symptoms such as pain, numbness, and tingling in the hands, legs, arms, and feet. The condition is a known risk factor of systemic fluoroquinolones, and warnings about the risk were added to the drugs' labels in 2004. After reviewing the FDA Adverse Event ...
Source: Diabetes Self-Management - August 23, 2013 Category: Diabetes Authors: Diane Fennell Source Type: blogs
Certain Antibiotics Linked to Blood Glucose Swings
By Diane Fennell
People with diabetes who take a certain class of antibiotics are more likely to experience severe swings in blood glucose, according to new research from Taiwan.
Previous research and case reports have raised concern about the possibility of severe high and low blood glucose associated with the use of fluoroquinolones, a class of antibiotics that includes ciprofloxacin (brand name Cipro), levofloxacin (Levaquin), and moxifloxacin (Avelox). One drug in this class, gatifloxacin (Tequin), was removed from the US market due to the risk of blood glucose fluctuations.
To assess the risk of severe blood gluc...
Source: Diabetes Self-Management - August 16, 2013 Category: Diabetes Authors: Diane Fennell Source Type: blogs
How safe is a Z-pak?
Text message:
“John, This cough and congestion is killing me. It’s turning thick and green. Can you write me a Z-pak? It always works for me.”
If you write a blog on medical decision-making and heart rhythm matters, it seems an incredible omission not to opine on the FDA warning concerning the commonly used antibiotic azithromycin (the drug in a Z-Pak). Quoting directly from the FDA warning:
[Azithromycin] can cause abnormal changes in the electrical activity of the heart that may lead to a potentially fatal irregular heart rhythm.
Should we say this more clearly: that simple antibiotic you are taking for a minor i...
Source: Dr John M - March 27, 2013 Category: Cardiology Authors: Dr John Source Type: blogs
J&J ‘Informational’ Faxes Are Not Junk: Judge
Doctor beware: some of those faxes arriving from drugmakers may be perfectly legitimate and not the sort of unwanted missive that have prompted some physicians to file lawsuits. Johnson & Johnson, in fact, won such a case when a federal judge last week tossed a lawsuit filed by a doctor who claimed two faxes concerning reimbursement information he received about the Levaquin antibiotic were unsolicited “junk.”
The drugmaker succeeded in convincing US District Court Judge Freda Wolfson that the lawsuit filed by a Cincinnati physician named Jose Martinez did not violate the Telephone Consumer Protection Act,...
Source: Pharmalot - February 5, 2013 Category: Pharma Commentators Authors: Ed Silverman Tags: Uncategorized Forest Laboratories JJ Johnson & Johnson Levaquin Telephone Consumer Protection Act Source Type: blogs
Healthcare Update — 02-04-2013
Chinese man runs out of money to pay for dialysis. Government “insurance” only pays half the costs of treatment (keep that in mind, Affordable Care Act supporters). Then human ingenuity kicks in.
The man builds himself a dialysis machine out of used and discarded medical equipment, mixes his own dialysis fluid, and has been dialyzing himself … and it has been keeping him alive for 13 years.
Doctors hearing about his unorthodox methods warned him about the risk of serious infection and “long-term complications” because he wasn’t using sterile water to make his dialysis fluid. Something tells me that if the compl...
Source: WhiteCoat's Call Room - February 4, 2013 Category: Emergency Medicine Doctors Authors: WhiteCoat Tags: Healthcare Update Source Type: blogs
Cancelling surgery: When the show can’t go on
It’s showtime. No need to worry. This is just another routine performance. I can do this. All I need to do is get on stage, do my dance, and wait for the curtain to fall. Then move on to the next stage and do it all again.The curtain opens.My patient is wheeled into the operating room. With the help of the circulating nurse, we guide her from the hospital gurney over to the operating room table. With the grace and precision of a ballerina, I start my recital by securing an oxygen mask over her face. Next, I apply the monitors – a blood pressure cuff to her right arm, a pulse oximeter probe to her left r...
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - January 31, 2013 Category: Family Physicians Tags: Physician Pulmonology Source Type: blogs
Not Heart Failure
I wasn’t giving in to the patient who wanted a prescription for Levaquin after the standard ZeePack didn’t cure his cough. He had a normal chest x-ray and labs the day before but was convinced that he had pneumonia. I tried explaining the difference between bacteria and viruses. I used the “RAID doesn’t work on dandelions” routine. He wasn’t convinced.
“I NEED a stronger antibiotic to break this up. Levaquin has worked in the past.”
“You know, I think I’m going to start you on some heart medications, instead. Some nitroglycerin and some Lasix for your heart failure.”
“Whaaat? I don’t have heart pr...
Source: WhiteCoat's Call Room - January 18, 2013 Category: Emergency Medicine Doctors Authors: WhiteCoat Tags: Patient Encounters Source Type: blogs
