Eating Gone Wrong: A Case of Misdiagnosing

You see, one thing we enjoy the most is food. We spend a lot of time cooking them, or ordering them from a very good restaurant hoping that we enjoy every bit of it. But do you know that in rare cases, the food a person is eating could lead to life-threatening cases if something goes wrong. There was such case where something got stuck while eating, and it was life-threatening.

October 2014, Vera Williams a 75 year old was having toast bread when she felt a sudden sharp pain in her throat after she swallowed the toast. Coughing, swallowing, or drinking water didn't do anything to savage the issue, so she immediately rushed to the hospital emergency room. At the hospital, the doctor examined her and didn't see anything so she was asked to go home. When she got home, the pain continued to worsen.

She bared the pain for a few days but couldn't hold it any longer and so she decided to got the hospital again but this time, it was a different doctor that attended to her. She explained to the doctor about hr pain, and the fact that she had visited the hospital prior but she didn't divulge lots of information so the doctor concluded it was an infection, gave her antibiotics, and sent her home.

When she got home, her case had worsen as she began to cough out blood along with the excruciating pain she was feeling. This got her back to the hospital in an ambulance. On arrival, a CT scan was done to understand what could be causing the pain and bleeding, and it was visible that Vera had suffered a ruptured esophagus which had spilled blood to her abdomen.

Although there was a diagnosis, treatment is a problem because according to a study carried out between 1995 and 2008 in the UK on 34 esophageal perforation treatment, it was seen that there was about 24% of in-hospital mortality rate among patients even after everything has been done to safe them including surgery although this is better compared to before the use of antibiotics which was about 90% mortality.

Esophageal perforation doesn't occur as a result of eating something sharp alone, it can happen as a result of other factors like intense blow to the chest or neck, intense vomiting, and an obstruction caused by swallowing. Back to the case of Vera, although the condition had been diagnosed, the treatment was difficult because she was previously diagnosed with severe case of heart disease which prevented the operation from being carried out. Sadly, she died of massive internal bleeding, and I could add misdiagnosis.

Although Vera case is very rare, it is not rare to be misdiagnosed in a hospital as as in the United states, over 300 thousand people die of misdiagnosis and over 400 thousand suffer from permanent disabilities yearly from misdiagnosis with 75% of the problems being related to heart problems, infections, Pneumonia, cancer, and Blood clot.

Vera Williams' story serves as a sobering reminder of the potential dangers hidden in everyday activities like eating. While such extreme cases are rare, the prevalence of misdiagnosis reveals the importance of thorough medical evaluations and the need for patients to advocate for their health instead of downplaying how they feel. Always seek a second opinion if something doesn't feel right, and remember that timely and accurate diagnosis can make all the difference.

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_{https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/woman-dies-after-eating-piece-6476066
https://journals.lww.com/md-journal/fulltext/2021/04230/current_treatment_and_outcome_of_esophageal.71.aspx
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19302220/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK532298/
https://bmcemergmed.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/1471-227X-9-24
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5873736/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8635483/
https://www.webmd.com/a-to-z-guides/news/20230719/misdiagnosis-seriously-harms-people-annually-study}

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_{Image 1 || Get Archive || coast guard airlifts injured 55 year old woman
Image 2 || Pexels || Photo of Woman Lying in Hospital Bed}