A healthy man was licked by his dog. He was dead within weeks.
2019-11-27 02:01:53
The 63-year-old man showed up in the hospital with a burning sensation in his left leg and muscle pain in both. His flu-like symptoms were severe, with labored breathing for three days. He had petechiae, or rounds spots on the skin that look like rashes as a result of bleeding capillaries, which made his legs look discolored. The patient's heartbeat was stable, doctors said, even though he was running a temperature of 102. His belabored breathing caused an inadequate supply of oxygen to his tissue. His failing kidneys were not producing urine, researchers wrote. But doctors had no idea what was wrong with him. He had not recently been in the hospital. They suspected some kind of bacteria, but he didn't have any open wounds and he didn't have meningitis. It wasn't until his fourth day in the hospital that a blood test revealed that the man had a type of bacteria found in the saliva of healthy dogs and cats. It's a kind of bacteria that's usually only transmitted to humans if they are bitten. But the German man is dead because his dog licked him. A paper published in the European Journal of Case Reports in Internal Medicine details how an otherwise healthy man lost his life within weeks of being infected by bacteria found in his dog's saliva. Doctors at the hospital determined that he had multiple, serious ailments: severe kidney injury, signs of live dysfunction and rhabdomyolysis, a deterioration of muscle tissue that can result in kidney failure. He also had a build up of lactic acid in his bloodstream. Once he was transferred to an intensive care unit, he was diagnosed as having severe sepsis with skin death and blood clotting, or purpura fulminans, according to doctors. He was treated with antibiotics, but his health took a rapid decline for the worst over the...
