Doctors are warning people of the danger of infection from invasive medical procedures such as dental work, after a recent case in which a young woman nearly died from inflammation of a heart valve after having a wisdom tooth removed.
Following medical treatment, if a person experiences fatigue, fever, lack of appetite or unusual weight loss, the patient should see a doctor to determine the cause because the symptoms could be due to an infection, said Chiu Kuang-ming (邱冠明), the head of the Cardiovascular Surgery Section at Far Eastern Memorial Hospital in New Taipei City.
The Chinese-language United Daily News earlier this week reported that a 25-year-old woman had a wisdom tooth extracted at a dental clinic in February and afterward began to have bouts of fever and chills.
As the symptoms persisted, she went to a hospital. A doctor said she had a case of endocaritis, an inflammation of the inner layer of the heart, which prevented her mitral valve from closing properly.
After undergoing surgery at the hospital to repair the valve and a month-long antibiotic treatment, the woman recovered, the United Daily News reported.
Chiu said her symptoms were not too severe, and although she felt tired, she was able to continue working and coped with her occasional fevers by resting.
“This went on for three months before the doctor made the correct diagnosis... Being a nurse herself, she has good awareness of irregular health conditions. However, the symptoms are easily overlooked by the general public,” Chiu said.
He said in serious cases of infections, some patients nearly had a stroke, others had impaired vision with inflammation of the liver and kidneys and another person lost about 10kg.
“Therefore, after any invasive medical procedure, people should get an examination to check their vital signs and health condition. They should be careful to prevent a small wound from becoming a major illness, which would be too high a price to pay,” Chiu added.
“Most invasive procedures — such as having teeth extracted by a dentist or for an intestinal tumor — bring the risk of infection through the incision. Oral cavities and saliva contain a lot of bacteria, so when a tooth is extracted, the wound is exposed to microbes, which can cause infection,” Chiu said.
He said that most bacteria cannot survive for long in the bloodstream, because they are removed by the body’s immune system, but some people have faulty immune systems that cannot eliminate all the microbes.
“When some bacteria reach the heart, they affix to the valves and infect and destroy tissue, which can lead to endocarditis and other conditions,” Chiu said.
Causes for most cases of endocarditis cannot be traced, but 10 percent of cases in the nation in the past six months were a result of dental work, he said.
He advised people to seek medical help if they developed abnormal health conditions following dental procedures.
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