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An Unsuspected Case of Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever: A Lesson to Keep a Broad Differential

Rocky Mountain spotted fever (RMSF), a tick-borne illness, can cause serious illness or death even in a healthy individual. Unfortunately, this illness can be difficult to diagnose as symptoms are nonspecific and oftentimes mimic benign viral illnesses. Delayed diagnosis can be detrimental as the ti...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Barbina, Sarah, Quiroga, Myra, Petz, Chelsey
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: SAGE Publications 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9791273/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36541205
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/23247096221145014
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author Barbina, Sarah
Quiroga, Myra
Petz, Chelsey
author_facet Barbina, Sarah
Quiroga, Myra
Petz, Chelsey
author_sort Barbina, Sarah
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description Rocky Mountain spotted fever (RMSF), a tick-borne illness, can cause serious illness or death even in a healthy individual. Unfortunately, this illness can be difficult to diagnose as symptoms are nonspecific and oftentimes mimic benign viral illnesses. Delayed diagnosis can be detrimental as the timing of antibiotic administration is critical to prevent associated morbidity and mortality. A careful travel and social history can sometimes provide clues to make the diagnosis. Being aware of lesser-known objective findings such as hyponatremia, neurologic derangements, transaminitis, and thrombocytopenia may help raise suspicion for the disease. This is a case of a 72-year-old woman who presented with nonspecific symptoms and hyponatremia without known tick exposure. She was eventually diagnosed with RMSF. The timing of her presentation corresponded with a surge in COVID-19 infections throughout her area of residence, which further complicated her presentation and contributed to a delayed diagnosis.
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spelling pubmed-97912732022-12-27 An Unsuspected Case of Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever: A Lesson to Keep a Broad Differential Barbina, Sarah Quiroga, Myra Petz, Chelsey J Investig Med High Impact Case Rep Case Report Rocky Mountain spotted fever (RMSF), a tick-borne illness, can cause serious illness or death even in a healthy individual. Unfortunately, this illness can be difficult to diagnose as symptoms are nonspecific and oftentimes mimic benign viral illnesses. Delayed diagnosis can be detrimental as the timing of antibiotic administration is critical to prevent associated morbidity and mortality. A careful travel and social history can sometimes provide clues to make the diagnosis. Being aware of lesser-known objective findings such as hyponatremia, neurologic derangements, transaminitis, and thrombocytopenia may help raise suspicion for the disease. This is a case of a 72-year-old woman who presented with nonspecific symptoms and hyponatremia without known tick exposure. She was eventually diagnosed with RMSF. The timing of her presentation corresponded with a surge in COVID-19 infections throughout her area of residence, which further complicated her presentation and contributed to a delayed diagnosis. SAGE Publications 2022-12-21 /pmc/articles/PMC9791273/ /pubmed/36541205 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/23247096221145014 Text en © 2022 American Federation for Medical Research https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).
spellingShingle Case Report
Barbina, Sarah
Quiroga, Myra
Petz, Chelsey
An Unsuspected Case of Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever: A Lesson to Keep a Broad Differential
title An Unsuspected Case of Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever: A Lesson to Keep a Broad Differential
title_full An Unsuspected Case of Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever: A Lesson to Keep a Broad Differential
title_fullStr An Unsuspected Case of Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever: A Lesson to Keep a Broad Differential
title_full_unstemmed An Unsuspected Case of Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever: A Lesson to Keep a Broad Differential
title_short An Unsuspected Case of Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever: A Lesson to Keep a Broad Differential
title_sort unsuspected case of rocky mountain spotted fever: a lesson to keep a broad differential
topic Case Report
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9791273/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36541205
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/23247096221145014
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