Skyhawk5 wrote on Feb 22nd, 2009 at 11:49pm:Laurie,
Thank you for the update. Makes you really wonder about Doctors. I think he should be in the hospital until they find the cause of the fevers.
My understanding is fevers that high are life threatening, and Doctors taking so much time to treat Gary are basically comitting malpractice. Am I wrong? It shouldn't take too many Dr's to see this.
I'm very sorry you and Gary still have the BIG CRAP, and please know we all send you UN-CRAP vibes and prayers. Gary hang in there brother, your pain is our pain....
Don
Well, after the doc rescheduling, we did finally get to the montefiore ID doc! He WAS surprised at the very few tests that were ordered by his GP or the lack of doing anything on the part of the prior two local infectious disease docs....

BUT... it is the fevers in excess of 107 that can be really dangerous. The others are "just" frying brain cells.
Now we know why it's been so hard to get to see this guy. He sees six patients a week. So he IS the right doc, and he concentrates on very few cases at a time (primarily a research doc). So that is GREAT.
But.... of course... the issue is going to be one of time. He HAS seen very high intermittent fevers before. But apparently literally a million things can cause them, especially given where Gary has traveled in his life. It appears that it doesn't matter it was 20 or 30 years ago, there are things that can be dormant that long.
So he's got to figure out where to start, so we're getting him ALL of Gary's medical records going back five years. He should have those next week, he'll have another week to review them, and then we see him again and decide where to go from there.
Also, if they turn out to be Central Fevers (not caused by an infection of some kind), he thinks he'll be able to find a way to treat them symptomatically.
In the meantime, we're charting Gary's temp every four hours for the next two weeks.
He was REALLY nice, and told Gary that he knows he's been suffering a long time, but he's just got to hang in there, because this is the first time he's seeing him, and it is a process that can take quite a bit of time. So at least we weren't completely deflated, but have realistic expectations.
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Hope everyone is uncrapping big time!
And B - sorry you've got the crap, but this is the thread to vent and get some uncrap vibes heading your way!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Laurie