brucellosis symptoms

[bjorn.osterman at alinks.se]

     What is stressed in this message is to be re-emphasized, namely 
     experienced problems of getting even medical surroundings to 
     understand which are the difficulties to comprehend the whole 
     concept of brucellosis.
     
     I, myself, did suffer from brucellosis ten years ago; this was the 
     result of my examination of a sample of cerebrospinal fluid from 
     a patient with what was proved to be a brucellar meningitis (there 
     was no pre-exam suspicion). Three months later I did pass through 
     the first episode of brucellosis (blood-culture proved Brucella 
     melitensis). During convalescens after this episode, two months 
     after leaving hospital, I fell sick again; the same story but more 
     low-graded. The dominant feature of this episode was an extreme 
     back-ache (acutely I fell down on the floor). The diagnosis proved 
     to be brucellar lumbo-sacral disco-spondylitis with an intraspinal 
     abscess.
     
     I am telling this because of the, at the time being, demonstrated 
     apparent problems of my surrounding medical colleagues to grasp the 
     whole situation of this second brucellar episode. A MD myself, I 
     was told that I suffered from a back-ache, originating from a X-ray 
     demonstrated spondylolisthesis in the lumbar region, in combination 
     with weakness during convalescens and a perhaps prolapsed nucleus 
     pulposus (operation for this was even planned!). The correct 
     diagnosis was evidenced by a somewhat delayed (which is natural 
     under the circumstances) rise of the Brucella-titers to very high 
     levels. There had been interpretation problems concerning X-ray, 
     MNR and so on. - The congenital spondylolisthesis was presumably a 
     "locus minoris resistensi" for the Brucella infection. I, myself, 
     was convinced from the beginning of this second episode, that this 
     was a true relapse of brucellosis (and one of my colleagues did 
     agree on my opinion).
     
     Brucella infection is predominantly characterized by its location 
     intracellularly, and the infection has a tandency of both being 
     generalized and localized. This "brucellar way of infection" 
     naturally creates problems of diagnosis; especially, of course, in 
     geograhic regions where brucellosis is a seldom ocurring infectious 
     disease.
     
                                Regards,        Bj|rn Osterman, MD
     fax: +46-8-302577
                                                Stockholm, Sweden
     
     PS. In the hope of being successful with "typography" this time. 
     
     
______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________
Subject: Re: brucellosis symptoms
Author:  PC {ziprin at usda.tamu.edu}
Date:    1995-06-12 17.16
     
     
There is a brucellosis lab at Texas A&M U and I know that 
one of the guys there had brucellosis.  He had a hell of a 
time convincing the docs that is what was wrong.
I think the man's name is Gary Adams but I'm not sure. 
Call the Vet School Micro Dept office  at 409-845-5941. 
Ask for the Brucellosis lab.
  
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