HONOLULU (AP) - A 24-year-old who had been studying in Hawaii when she became ill says doctors did not do a good job of diagnosing her properly.
Tatum Larson did not receive a correct diagnosis for her illness until returning home to Seattle, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser reported (https://bit.ly/2qNT7aF ). Back home, doctors had told her she contracted rat lungworm disease. Her diagnosis was then confirmed by Hawaii’s Department of Health after having her spinal fluid tested, she said.
Larson said nurses in Hawaii tried to send her home with painkillers, which she rejected, and a doctor suggested that maybe it was early-onset arthritis or Lyme disease.
“Even I knew that was not anywhere close to being right,” she said. “His general attitude was completely dismissive. If you are a doctor in Hawaii, you should know . this thing has been happening on the Big Island for years and years and they don’t know about it. That’s ridiculous. So I left with no information.”
Larson believes she acquired the disease from eating locally grown lettuce during a visit to Hilo, which she said she washed.
Snails and slugs are the primary transmitter of the disease - the semi-slug, in particular, which can be so small and translucent that it’s hard to spot, can carry thousands of larvae. People with the disease suffer from worm larvae infecting the brain.
Larson developed meningitis, had stabbing pains in her head, lost motor control in parts of her body, and had trouble hearing, seeing and spelling words.
She contends that some of her suffering, and that of others who have contracted the disease, could have been avoided if doctors in Hawaii were better at diagnosing and treating the disease.
“I think there needs to be way more medical knowledge and early treatment because it seems that they always catch it late, and then if they do catch it, they don’t know what to do,” she said.
Officials with Maui Memorial Medical Center declined to comment, citing patients’ privacy. But Hawaii doctors have a documented past of not agreeing on the best way to treat the disease.
During a briefing at the state Capitol earlier this year, officials with the Health Department and rat lungworm researchers from Hilo didn’t agree on how to treat the disease, frustrating legislators from Hawaii island, where most of the cases have occurred.
Hilo researchers said they believed anti-parasite medication should be administered to kill the worm larvae. But Sarah Park, the state epidemiologist with the Health Department, called such treatment “reprehensible from a medical standpoint,” saying that the medication potentially doesn’t work and could actually worsen the patient’s symptoms.
Months later, there’s still a lack of agreement on how to treat the disease.
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This story has been corrected to change the dateline to Honolulu
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Information from: Honolulu Star-Advertiser, https://www.staradvertiser.com
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