Cargando…

Empirical Administration of Doxycycline for Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever: A Case Report

Rocky Mountain spotted fever (RMSF) is a tick-borne illness that can cause extreme sickness, even death, in otherwise healthy individuals. Sometimes, it is difficult to confirm the diagnosis as the rash often lags behind other symptoms of the illness and may not occur at all. Other symptoms of RMSF...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Dey, Proma, Mitu, Mitara J, Chakrabarty, Swarna, Mou, Adrita Nourin, Islam, Mohammad F
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Cureus 2023
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10663404/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/38022143
http://dx.doi.org/10.7759/cureus.47492
_version_ 1785138390562242560
author Dey, Proma
Mitu, Mitara J
Chakrabarty, Swarna
Mou, Adrita Nourin
Islam, Mohammad F
author_facet Dey, Proma
Mitu, Mitara J
Chakrabarty, Swarna
Mou, Adrita Nourin
Islam, Mohammad F
author_sort Dey, Proma
collection PubMed
description Rocky Mountain spotted fever (RMSF) is a tick-borne illness that can cause extreme sickness, even death, in otherwise healthy individuals. Sometimes, it is difficult to confirm the diagnosis as the rash often lags behind other symptoms of the illness and may not occur at all. Other symptoms of RMSF are nonspecific, such as fever, headache, and malaise. Besides the confirmatory serology test, antibody titers remain negative in the early phase of the illness. Here, we reported a case of a 21-year-old male who presented with fever, mild headache, body aches, joint pain, dry cough, and characteristic maculopapular rash after visiting a tick-prone area. Doxycycline was started because symptoms and laboratory values heightened our suspicion for the diagnosis of RMSF. His condition improved gradually, and his labs became normal. Our study supports the empirical use of doxycycline in suspected RMSF cases. 
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-10663404
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2023
publisher Cureus
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-106634042023-10-22 Empirical Administration of Doxycycline for Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever: A Case Report Dey, Proma Mitu, Mitara J Chakrabarty, Swarna Mou, Adrita Nourin Islam, Mohammad F Cureus Internal Medicine Rocky Mountain spotted fever (RMSF) is a tick-borne illness that can cause extreme sickness, even death, in otherwise healthy individuals. Sometimes, it is difficult to confirm the diagnosis as the rash often lags behind other symptoms of the illness and may not occur at all. Other symptoms of RMSF are nonspecific, such as fever, headache, and malaise. Besides the confirmatory serology test, antibody titers remain negative in the early phase of the illness. Here, we reported a case of a 21-year-old male who presented with fever, mild headache, body aches, joint pain, dry cough, and characteristic maculopapular rash after visiting a tick-prone area. Doxycycline was started because symptoms and laboratory values heightened our suspicion for the diagnosis of RMSF. His condition improved gradually, and his labs became normal. Our study supports the empirical use of doxycycline in suspected RMSF cases.  Cureus 2023-10-22 /pmc/articles/PMC10663404/ /pubmed/38022143 http://dx.doi.org/10.7759/cureus.47492 Text en Copyright © 2023, Dey et al. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Internal Medicine
Dey, Proma
Mitu, Mitara J
Chakrabarty, Swarna
Mou, Adrita Nourin
Islam, Mohammad F
Empirical Administration of Doxycycline for Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever: A Case Report
title Empirical Administration of Doxycycline for Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever: A Case Report
title_full Empirical Administration of Doxycycline for Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever: A Case Report
title_fullStr Empirical Administration of Doxycycline for Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever: A Case Report
title_full_unstemmed Empirical Administration of Doxycycline for Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever: A Case Report
title_short Empirical Administration of Doxycycline for Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever: A Case Report
title_sort empirical administration of doxycycline for rocky mountain spotted fever: a case report
topic Internal Medicine
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10663404/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/38022143
http://dx.doi.org/10.7759/cureus.47492
work_keys_str_mv AT deyproma empiricaladministrationofdoxycyclineforrockymountainspottedfeveracasereport
AT mitumitaraj empiricaladministrationofdoxycyclineforrockymountainspottedfeveracasereport
AT chakrabartyswarna empiricaladministrationofdoxycyclineforrockymountainspottedfeveracasereport
AT mouadritanourin empiricaladministrationofdoxycyclineforrockymountainspottedfeveracasereport
AT islammohammadf empiricaladministrationofdoxycyclineforrockymountainspottedfeveracasereport