Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever (cont.)

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Medical Author:

Charles Patrick Davis, MD, PhD

Dr. Charles "Pat" Davis, MD, PhD, is a board certified Emergency Medicine doctor who currently practices as a consultant and staff member for hospitals. He has a PhD in Microbiology (UT at Austin), and the MD (Univ. Texas Medical Branch, Galveston). He is a Clinical Professor (retired) in the Division of Emergency Medicine, UT Health Science Center at San Antonio, and has been the Chief of Emergency Medicine at UT Medical Branch and at UTHSCSA with over 250 publications.

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Medical Editor:

Melissa Conrad Stöppler, MD, Chief Medical Editor

Melissa Conrad Stöppler, MD, is a U.S. board-certified Anatomic Pathologist with subspecialty training in the fields of Experimental and Molecular Pathology. Dr. Stöppler's educational background includes a BA with Highest Distinction from the University of Virginia and an MD from the University of North Carolina. She completed residency training in Anatomic Pathology at Georgetown University followed by subspecialty fellowship training in molecular diagnostics and experimental pathology.

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Outlook

Most patients diagnosed and treated with appropriate antibiotics early in the disease do well and have mild or no complications. However, if the diagnosis and antibiotic treatment are delayed, serious complications can occur. The complications can be varied; they can include nerve damage that results in hearing loss and paralysis; kidney, heart, or lung failure; meningitis; blindness; brain damage; clotting problems; tissue gangrene; and even death. Older patients usually do not do as well as younger patients, and patients that develop the major symptoms very soon after a tick bite (about two to five days) have a worse prognosis than those patients who develop symptoms later. If diagnosis and treatment are delayed, the mortality (death) rate even with treatment can be about 3%-5% and reportedly as high as 9% in patients over the age of 70 according to one study.

What Should a Person Do if a Tick Is Found Attached to the Skin?»

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