Tetanus: When gardening becomes life threatening --
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Tetanus didn't enter my mind when a
darning needle entered my toe. But it
should have. Tetanus is nasty, so
tetanus inoculations are vitally
important, every ten years!!! I hadn't
had one for about thirty years.
In the image on the left, the right-hand
needle is an unbroken darning needle
from the same packet as the needle on
the left that broke off in my toe.
.
The needle fell out of my great aunt's
sewing basket, lodged in an
age-damaged Persian rug I got off
EBay, and put an abrupt end to my
brisk stride as I went from gardening
to sewing.
Dear Dr. Fitzpatrick...
Thursday, September 30, I got major, extremely painful cramps in all the
muscles around my waist area. It was so painful that I actually cried out.
I thought it was because I was so cold because I didn’t want to put heat on
when I don’t have money.
And I also wondered if it was from bad food.
I don’t know if you know this or not, but the food that is given to people
who need food is largely expired and somewhat rotten and spoiled. The
eggs, for instance, were all cloudy ...
Friday my muscles were still tight around my abdomen...
it’s been a long time since I had a tetanus shot...
I would like to get whatever test there is to identify whether or not I have
tetanus.
Dear Dr. Fitzpatrick and Patti,
...On Monday, October 4, 2004, I waited at the Emergency Room for about 4 hours.
I would have waited longer, but all of a sudden, the cramping stopped. I moved
around a bit, to see if it had really stopped, and it had. So I decided to leave. Among
other things, I wanted to get some aspirin ... the hospital refused to give me an aspirin,
and on Monday I was nauseated as I had been on Sunday. ... I thought that maybe
nausea is associated with heart problems. And, the Bayer commercials on telly tell me
that aspirin helps.
... at the hospital Emergency Room they saw everyone that was there before me, and
then they saw everyone that came in after me. But they didn’t see me.
...But then the pain just stopped and my muscles weren’t cramping anymore. So I
decided that if I left I could get the aspirin and then get some rest.
...My feeling was that the hospital did not believe that I was really sick because I didn’
t have a fever.
...Next day I still felt great and I was so happy. I did a lot of things for the first two
hours, but then the pain began to come back. Only I thought it was just soreness from
how long my muscles had been cramping, so I pushed on... in a way ... I was thinking
the hospital may have been right, that nothing was wrong with me.
Only that thinking changed when the pain became like that of an appendicitis attack. It
was just soooo intense. It made me sweat, it hurt so much.
..Wednesday the pain was still bad, but not of the intensity of an appendicitis attack. I
couldn’t do anything, though, because as soon as I was up for more than a minute or
two, the pain’s intensity increased. I prayed that if I stayed in bed, then Thursday
(which is today) I could have a reprieve from the pain and be able to try to get the
medicine to make the tetanus go away. I think this must be tetanus because of how all
my muscles are affected. Not “all” but pretty many, like especially those in my mid-
section.
...I will go in to Dr. Fitzpatrick’s about 9:30 a.m. because I think that it is unwise to
not have medication.
Karen Kline
...It is distressing... my poverty keeps me from getting timely, adequate medical
attention...
...I believe that if I have been given a prescription for antibiotics as early as October
1, 2004... I would not ever have had the severe contractions...
I am distressed at the plight of people who live in poverty and who are denied simple
health care because they do not have money...
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Karen Kline
I found information on a New Zealand site easy to understand:
Who gets tetanus and who is at risk?
People who have not been immunised against tetanus, or those whose last
immunisation is no longer current, are at risk of getting tetanus if they've suffered
an open wound.
In recent years, two thirds of all tetanus cases have been in persons 50 years of age
and older.
Having had a tetanus infection in the past does not make you immune to tetanus in
the future. Without treatment, one out of three affected people will die. The
mortality rate for newborns with untreated tetanus is even higher -- two out of three.
Symptoms and signs of tetanus
Stiffness of the jaw -- usually the first sign of tetanus
Stiffness of the neck and other muscles
Spasms of the neck and other muscles
Rigidity of the chest muscles
Rigidity of the abdominal muscles
Spasms and rigidity of the back muscles, often causing arching of the back
Seizures - painful, powerful bursts of muscle contraction
Irritability
Fever
Other symptoms may include
Excessive sweating
Difficulty swallowing
Hand or foot spasms
Drooling
Uncontrolled urination
Uncontrolled defecation
Tetanus can develop even after a wound which appears trivial and uninfected.
The incubation period is five days to 15 weeks.
How is tetanus diagnosed?
Diagnosis of tetanus is based on the relevant medical history (Has there been a
break in the skin? When was the last tetanus shot received?) and physical findings
(common symptoms of tetanus).
Diagnostic tests, such as testing cultures of the wound site, are generally of little
value. Two thirds of the time, wounds test negative for the Clostridium bacterium.
Other tests that may be performed are tests to rule out meningitis, rabies, strychnine
poisoning or other diseases with similar symptoms.
Karen Marie Kline
Santa Fe, New Mexico 87507
November 16, 2004
Alex Valdez, CEO
St. Vincent Hospital
465 St. Michael’s Drive
Santa Fe, New Mexico 87505
Dear Mr. Valdez,
I am writing to you because St. Vincent Hospital, which is “classified as a sole
community provider by Medicare” has failed in its legal duty under the ADA, title II.
I am qualified under the ADA, Title II. Tests administered through the Department
of Vocational Rehabilitation show that I’ve lost about half of my working memory
and my processing speed. These losses are a disability.
On October 7, 2004, because I was in extreme pain from muscle contractions in my
back, I had difficulty explaining what was wrong. I asked a nurse and Dr. Raboff to
call Corrine Romero, my TBI case manager, and tell her I was in the ER, and ask
her to come to help me explain. Corrine Romero had observed the first contraction I
had, a week earlier.
Corrine did not came. After I was released, I asked Corrine about it and she said
that no one had called her.
Because I was refused accommodation for my disability: TBI, I am suffering from
the same thing that caused me to be taken to the ER on October 7, 2004, and this is
causing me serious damage.
As a point of law, this is an ADA case and not a medical malpractice case. This
means I do not need an expert medical witness to go to trial on my complaint that
the hospital failed to provide guidelines and oversight to ensure that my disability
was accommodated.
The reason the failure to accommodate is so serious, is that the medical records that
were created in the absence of clear input from me (absent because I was denied
accommodation of my disability) are dangerously inaccurate; “Dangerous” because
those inaccurate records have been relied upon by other ER doctors and Whole Life
Clinic to deny me not only treatment, but medical examination since October 7,
2004.
Some of the inaccuracies created by the failure to accommodate my disability are
shown on the Abdominal Pain sheet:
1. Under “Historian: patient HX Exam Limited By:” it says “will not
a. fails to note that movement caused painful contractions
b. fails to note guarding against extreme pain
c. fails to note TBI which I stated I have
d. fails to note that I asked for my case manager to be called to help me explain
2. “Pt. uncooperative” I can’t read the next bit, then “Hostile & Threat”
a. the contraction pain was dictating my behavior to a large extent
i. the contraction pain made me very irritable
ii. Several times I screamed, “If you want to see pain like this continue, Vote
for Bush;” that is not a “threat.”
3. Under “HPI”
a. “generalized myalgias”
i. there was nothing general about the extreme pain from the contractions of my
on the right hand side.
b. “muscle cramps” –
i. what I was feeling and what caused Whole Life Clinic to call an ambulance
was not cramps; it was muscle contractions that pulled me backwards in the
most painful way that made me scream the same way I did when I was giving
birth to my son.
4. Under “started”
a. “accidental needle” ... but what is the next word?
b. “4 weeks ago” is wrong, it happened on August 14, 2004
c. “removed 2 ½ weeks” is wrong, I removed the quarter inch of needle two
days after it went into my toe and broke off
d. “sa” what is that????
e. I can’t read the next two lines, but if they say that the first problem was
“Tweek” it would be wrong because I had some red lines under my toe nail
right after I took the needle out. Because of the lines I soaked my foot for
about 4 hours a day for about a week in Epsom salts, and I took 2 sm. Bottles
of Vitamin C. The red lines got really faint after that so I stopped worrying
about them.
f. “Pt concerned about tetanus Tricore had tetanus” I can’t read the next
i. This line is important because I was “concerned” about tetanus,
ii. whereas Dr. Raboff and Paolo G. were describing me as saying, “I have
1. the Behavior Health report describes me as “paranoid”
2. false reports of this nature are damaging
g. “Pt claims chronic B12 deficiency resulted instability fell
5. Under “time course”
a. “still present” and “constant” do not reflect the fact that the contractions
remained still
b. “persistent since Tweek” doesn’t describe that the contractions started at
Whole Life Clinic. I had one contraction a week earlier, but that one sudden
contraction was not in itself ongoing. It was observed by Corrine Romero.
6. Under “quality”
a. “cramping” would have been more clear if sharp had been added to indicate
the extremel painful nature of the contractions
7. Under “location”
a. only the front of the diagram is marked and it wrongly shows my arms and
shoulders as being affected by the pain
b. the back of the diagram should have been marked: The major pain had been
in my back when the muscles there, on my right side, contracted.
8. Under “severity” “relieved by”
a. “nothing” is incorrectly circled. Holding myself totally still kept the
contractions from happening.
9. Under “similar symptoms previously”
a. this is crossed out, whereas there was a contraction a week earlier
10. Under “ROS”
a. “trouble breathing” seems half heartedly circled, whereas the tightening of
my diaphragm muscles was making breathing tough.
b. “joint pains diffuse” is totally inaccurate. My joints weren’t painful at all.
c. “back pain” is circled here, which appears to substantiate that the back side of
the diagram should have been marked.
d. “diffuse” is inaccurate since the contractions had been in precisely one set of
muscles on the right side of my back
i. additionally, my abdominal muscles were tight
ii. my diaphragm muscles were tight
iii. my muscles on my sides were tight
iv. leg, arm muscles were not affected
11. Under “prior work up”
a. “head trauma” noted by not fact I asked for Corrine Romero to help
b. “cognitive difficulties since” but still they did not call Corrine Romero as I
c. “has difficulty” can’t read the rest... but still they did not call Corrine Romero
as I asked to help me clearly explain
12. I can’t comment on “Medications” ... “see nurses notes” because I haven’t
got time to find the notes because of how long it takes me to do things
because of the loss of a significant part of my processing speed.
13. Under “Social HX” it fails to record that I said I do not use drugs.
a. this failure is apparently related to the fact extensive drug testing was done on
b. while extensive drug testing was done, the doctor refused to look at my toe or
Because of the enormous amount of time this take me, I don’t have time to do the
second page.
This page shows, however, that several extremely important facts were ignored or
recording in a conflicting manner (no pain in back vs. diffuse pain in back, as an
example).
What concerns me now, as it did then, is that the continuing muscle tightness that I
am experiencing is tetanus.
The tightness was so extreme that to walk across one single square foot of saltillo
tile, it took me three steps. It was so extreme that I could not bend even an inch
without making my back muscles feel like they might contract again. The tightness
was so extreme I couldn’t lift my Brita pitcher when it had more than an inch of
water because of the extreme pressure and strain that put on my tight muscles.
In the beginning, the tightness turned to pain very rapidly; Being up more than a
minute caused pain, and that pain increased by the second.
I want to make it clear that when I talked about my muscles feeling like they had
after I had my appendix out, this was in my letter to Dr. Bardwell, I was describing
not a level of pain, but of constriction... after I had my appendix out I couldn’t stand
up straight. I got right up and walked around, but I couldn’t stand up straight.
The day I came home from the ER I had incontinence, and I had it again yesterday.
Yesterday and several days last week I relapsed.
It is very hard to sit up and soak my foot. If I had been heard, allowed to
communicate my history with the help of my case manager, then the hospital and
doctors would have had a clear picture of what was wrong, Failing that, they did not
and I remain inadequately treated as a result of discrimination.
I am complaining because unless I complain you will continue to ignore the points I
have previously raised, and I will never be able to feel secure that ER or hospital
care is available to me as a person with a disability.
I am extremely distressed that when I went to the ER a second time, on October 31,
2004, the inaccuracies of October 7, 2004 appeared to affect my visit. That is, when
I was asking the doctor about my toe, he interrupted saying that he knew what I was
going to say, and I didn’t have an infection. He did not look at my toe to make that
determination. He did not look at my toe at all. So, he must have made that
determination on the basis of the discriminatory notes from October 7. He appeared
to take nothing I said seriously and when I asked him what was wrong with me he
said I should research fibromyalgia. If I had not been discriminated against, I would
not have a medical record from October 7, 2004 saying I’m paranoid. I really object
to this kind of discrimination and its impact on my health.
I have a web page with some pictures of my toe on it:
www.health-boundaries-bite-com/Gardening-Darning-Needles-And-Tetanus.html .
Sincerely,
Karen Kline
I'm going to put my email signature here because I feel sure that if I had not had
nerve damage from low B12, I would not have gotten tetanus.
I tidied this page up and increase the font size on July 4, 2006.
I added my Health Boundaries Bite artwork in, October 16, 2007.
Note: I believe the fact I have more B12 in my system than most people my age,
accounts for #3, above. Why do I have more B12 than most?
I have more B12 in my system than most people my age because now that I have
cognitive dysfunction as a result of undiagnosed and untreated B12 malabsorption, I
am devoted to having regular shots. Plus, after I got the puncture wound and red
lines appeared, I started having two shots a week, then a shot every other day on
the simple theory that this is stressful and B12 helps with stress.
I bet if I had not had so much B12, that I'd be suffering rigor mortis right now!!!
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After the antibiotic ran out and the lines were still there, I wanted a refill because I
felt the remaining lines might mean trouble.
The fact that my toe still had the lines -- apparently from a tiny wound that occurred
two months earlier -- and was tender when pressed at the sight of entry, didn't seem
to be able to trump the tetanus test, in the eyes of Whole Life Clinic, or St. Vincent
Hospital ER doctors.
Terrified because my voice was still faint, my chest and other muscles tight, the lines
were still apparent on my toe, and I had no strength, I searched the Internet for
information about tetanus tests. What I found was conclusive that tetanus tests can
not be used to diagnose tetanus.
I wrote an email for each source of information. Their subject lines tell the story, but
quoting all of them took a lot of space so I put them all on a separate page, with links
to the text of the emails themselves and some links to the pages from which I got the
information. (Some of the pages have been changed since then.)
If you want to see how clear it is that no tetanus test exists for the diagnosis of
tetanus, take a look at the email subject lines.
Could tetanus happen to you?
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Having heard that vitamin C blocks colds by changing the body's ph, making the
body inhospitable to the cold virus, I thought vitamin C might help with tetanus. Now
I wonder if the bottles of vitamin C that I took early on fortuitously delayed the
tetanus contractions: tetanus is less often fatal the later the symptoms appear.
12/10/04: I found a site reporting a Vitamin C/tetanus/strychnine study in which 60
two-day old chicks were divided into four groups with 15 birds in each group.
Group 1 got 5 nanograms of strychnine sulphate (SS) (which apparently acts the
Group 2 got 5 nanograms of SS plus 30 mg of Ascorbic Acid (Vitamin C);
Group 3 got 10 nanograms of SS;
Group 4 got 10 nanograms SS and 30 mg Vitamin C.
The results were:
Group 1: Wings of all birds stretched; some walked on toes, others kept jumping but
Group 2: No symptoms
Group 3: Extensor paralysis of legs; severe convulsions; and all but three died.
Group 4: Extensor paralysis in 3 chicks; no neurological symptoms in others. The
affected bird recovered in about 30 minutes after the appearance of
symptoms.
Pictures: 2nd week
November, 2004
I was told I could not have more antibiotic
because the tetanus test showed I did not have tetanus.
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11/27/04
Each week I have been able to be up one more minute, first thing in the
morning, which is my best time. After that I have to rest a half hour to get
another 3 minutes, or rest an hour if I want more than five minutes.
Today, however my algae eater died and I had to take it out of the fish bowl.
This took longer than the 13 minutes I've built up to, but I had to do it for
the sake of the gold fish. Now I have a very sharp pain in my upper
abdominal muscles when I move my torso the least bit. So, it's probably time
to work on this page some more.
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TBI (Traumatic Brain Injury) affected my health care on October 7, 2004.
I was unable to be clear because of the extreme pain and fear caused by the
muscle seizures.
When I asked for accommodation of my disability, it was denied by hospital
staff.
In the absence of accommodation, my symptoms were wrongly recorded.
The following letter makes note of specific areas affected on one hospital
form, alone.
Observe the number of inaccuracies.
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Actual Size
Karen Kline
I piled these stones on 9/29/04, the day
before the first muscle contraction hit. This
picture is my response to the ER nurse who
said, "Pretending to have pain is a way of
being lazy." An ER doctor told me to
research fibromyalgia; the closest he got to
my toe was to glance at it as he left. I
thought of people on the news who said
they thought their dead relative had
Hantavirus but the doctors ignored them. I
decided I had to get home.
11/14/04 - Chest very tight;
scan ECG from ER
which says it is abnormal.
It was never explained to me.
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These pictures are from
different days, but all
on one roll.
more red
less red
The injured toe is
shiny because layers
of skin peeled off.
Point where needle entered.
←
Effect of ascorbic acid in the treatment of tetanus.
Jahan K, Ahmad K, Ali MA.
The effect of daily intravenous administration of 1000 mg ascorbic acid (AA) in
tetanus patients aged 1-30 years was studied. In the age group of 1-12 years, 31
patients were treated with AA as additional to antitetanus serum, sedatives and
antibiotics. It was found that none of the patients died who received AA along with
the conventional antitetanus therapy. On the other hand, 74.2 per cent of the tetanus
patients who received the conventional antitetanus therapy without AA (control group)
were succumbed to the infection. In the other age group of 13-30 years, there were
27 and 38 patients in the treatment and control groups respectively. The mortality in
the AA and control groups were 37 percent and 67.8 percent respectively. These
results suggest that AA might play an important role in reducing the mortality of
tetanus. This was supported by the fact that AA was found to mitigate the toxic
effects of strychnine producing tetanus like condition in young chicks in the present
study.
Bangladesh Med Res Counc Bull. 1984 Jun;10(1):24-8.
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/...6466264
More about the enormous benefit of Vitamin C to infected/poisoned individuals, by
Dr. Thomas E. Levy.
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Pictures: 3rd week
November, 2004
These pictures are from different
days, but all on one roll.
The red lines go
Only to return
Pale circular pattern around
an ear shaped reddish area.
Red streak on my left toe,
none on my right--
When I was taking these, I didn't have
the ones taken against the saltillo and
louvered closet doors back yet, so I
didn't yet know how much better those
backgrounds were.
Pictures: end November
beginning December.
These pictures are from different
days, but all on one roll.
But just a few days earlier --
the tiny white dot in the
reddest bit would not scrap
off. It appeared to be the top
of something embedded in my
toe. Could it be the poison
drawn out by the Epsom salt?
The day after the tiny
white dot there was lots
more white stuff, lots
less red.
Karen Kline
Here you can see a corner of the
age-damaged Persian rug where the darning
needle was. You can also see a bit of my
Gazelle exercise machine which I bought
because it has a bar to hold on to, which I
needed because of my balance problems
resulting from low B12 and the hydrogen
sulfide from the privy pit.
This is my beautiful chard, which I never got to eat that year.
(I believe my Polish grandfather lived to nearly a hundred
because he grew his own vegetables, without pesticides or
commercial fertilizer.)
By taking masses of vitamin C (twelve 500mg tablets with rose hips) 3 times a day,
each time with a mug of tea, by using Epsom salt compresses for at least 12 hours a
day; and by having B12 shots every couple of days, the redness and lines appear to
go away. Only, when I stop the above, the lines and redness come back. Sometimes
the lines are gone when I take the compress off, but a few hours later they are visible
again.
This is the journal I kept. The ebb and flow of healing are recorded as they
happened.
It's clear that folk remedies work. I'm grateful for them, but if I'd had adequate
antibiotic, the infection would have been cleared months ago. This way I'm still
fighting it and who knows if it's doing insidious damage that I'll find out about later.
Dear Dr. Fitzpatrick and Alice Sisneros,
The results are not yet back from the tetanus test ordered by Whole Life Clinic, so I
don’t yet know whether or not I have tetanus.
What I do know, is that I was in EXTREME pain when my muscles began
contracting at Whole Life Clinic on Thursday morning. That was when a Whole Life
Clinic health care provider called an ambulance to take me to the Emergency Room.
Today, two days later, the pain is so intense when I stand, that I can not handle more
than a minute or two, and bending is beyond my capacity to withstand the pain.
Significantly, the pain restricts my activity so severely that all I am able to eat is
Saltines which require no preparation.
Making myself a cup of coffee or green tea is such a painful undertaking due to the
amount of standing required, that if I make one cup of each a day, it is a tremendous
triumph over the pain.
I am writing to note that the hospital gave me a pain killer in the I.V., and then
several hours later gave me two 250 mg Erythromycin and a prescription for same.
One of the hospital nurses showed me a medical book that said antibiotics stop the
toxins from forming. Apparently the toxins attach to nerves or something.
Because tetanus, if this is tetanus, is a virus, the antibiotic doesn’t kill the tetanus, it
stops the toxins. I don’t pretend to understand this, I just know that this sounds
pretty simple and I’m pretty angry that you failed to give me a prescription for
antibiotics on the first occasion that I came to each of you.
I came to you, Alice, on October 1, 2004, when you refused to see me. In the past
when I asked you if I could pay in the future, you said no, that I should go to the
Emergency Room, that they take people who can’t pay.
Clear -- no line.
←
Tetanus - a health boundary that bites
Pulling the needle out, I wondered, "Does this mean I should give up sewing... or
sandals?"Two days later I was giving myself my B12 shot when the tip of my toe
glinted in the sun. Suspicious, I got tweezers and, low and behold, I found a bit of
broken needle. I would have liked my toe to bleed, but it didn't.
When I put the metal splinter against the needle, I saw it was only half of the needle's
eye. In the picture you can see the smaller bit right above the needle on the left;
farther up is the hooked part of the needle's eye.
I am pretty sure the reason I didn't feel the broken bit of needle in my toe is that I
have peripheral neuropathy, which is a form of nerve damage caused in my case by
an extended period of low vitamin B12. It can also be caused by diabetes. (I used to
try to wiggle my toes while I watched telly, hoping that the exercise would help. The
nerve damage made it hard, if not impossible, to wiggle my toes.)
I wasn't keen to prod for the hooked bit of eye even though I knew the peripheral
neuropathy made my toes numb. (When my kitty washes my toes, the only way I
know is if I see her). But, keen or not, I did it.
When I felt the tweezers hit metal, I tweezed but the hooked part was stuck.
Perspiring from stress, I thought I'd leave the partially withdrawn eye on the end of
my toe and go to my appointment with my therapist and traumatic brain injury case
manager, but that weirded me out. Gritting my teeth, I gave a determined, successful
pull, then taped the needle bits to the piece of paper, as you see them above.
I didn't know that
a tetanus test was
going to create a
huge problem.
My tetanus test
was .16 from "off
the top," but was
in range; Whole
Life Clinic said I
didn't have tetanus.
I wasn't allowed to
talk to a doctor or
nurse about the
results, so I called
the lab. The lady
said my reading
was high for not
having had a
tetanus shot in 30
years and she was
sorry she couldn't
talk to me.
I had been given
the idea that there
is a tetanus test by
a pharmacist when
I called asking if
there was any
natural antibiotic.
There is, in fact,
no test for tetanus.
But, because I
thought there was,
I tied myself to the
results of a test,
when in fact the
test tells whether
or not a tetanus
shot is needed, not
whether or not
someone has
tetanus.
I was the one who
introduced the idea
of a test after I'd
talked to the
pharmacist, and
the pharmacist was
wrong. But, sadly I
convinced Whole
Life Clinic, to my
detriment.
This issue is dealt
with further down,
to include material
showing that there
is no test for
tetanus.
Because of
enormous stress
from the privy pit
and resultant
foreclosures my
neck is stiff so
much I just block
it out. When my
jaw got really tight
at one point I
thought it was
strain from my
badly fitting partial.
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When I had
muscle
contractions I
didn't have a
fever. In the
preceding weeks
I'd felt feverish
but chalked it up
to stress.
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Symptoms
Spasms and tightening of the jaw muscle ("lockjaw")
Stiffness and spasms of various muscle groups
Neck muscles
Chest muscles
Abdominal muscles
Back muscles, often causing arching (opisthotonos)
Tetanic seizures (painful, powerful muscle contractions)
Irritability
Fever
