Misdiagnosis is a serious problem in hospitals. And that’s never more clear than it is in stories like this one.
This man went into the hospital complaining of sudden pain in his neck and tingling in his left arm.
Doctors thought he had muscle and joint pain, so they gave him cyclobenzaprine, a muscle relaxant.
The next day, though, the man had a fever and was sweating and shaking.
Doctors then quickly identified the man as having serotonin syndrome, a serious side effect of drugs like cyclobenzaprine. The symptoms of that condition include heavy sweating, fever, and loss of coordination.
What the doctors didn’t realize was that when the man refused to drink water or allow doctors to give him an oxygen tube, he was experiencing hydrophobia and aerophobia, which are symptoms of rabies.
They continued treating him for serotonin syndrome, but it didn’t work. So they tried treating him for herpes, West Nile, syphilis, and Rocky Mountain spotted fever.
When those came back negative, doctors were at a loss. Then, they spoke to his family.
His family said that he lived in a trailer, where he liked to photography wild animals. That’s when the doctors suspected that he may have rabies.
Dr. Chinnakotla, who treated the patient said that they should use this case as a cautionary tale that serotonin syndrome-like symptoms “might be masquerading manifestations of rabies.”
Luckily, rabies is rare—one of those diseases that we’ve vaccinated mostly out of existence. This man’s case was the second case of rabies ever in Missouri in the past 50 years. He was infected by a strain of rabies most often gotten from the tri-colored bat, which often doesn’t even cause pain with its bites.
There’s a post-exposure vaccine now for people who think they have been exposed to the vaccine, so if you’re ever bitten by a wild animal, get yourself to the doctor immediately and tell them what happened. Better safe than sorry.
