According to a story from Mirror Online, 38-year-old Laura Cartner had been complaining of severe headaches and seemed to be losing some of her coordination. She also had a past history of vasculitis. Despite these problems, her general practitioner sent her home after a routine check-up.
By the next day, she had passed away.
Laura had a complex medical history and had lost her unborn twins a year previously. Her pregnancy had been complicated by vasculitis, which struck her at 22 weeks. Vasculitis is a disease in which the blood vessels are damaged and destroyed by severe inflammation. Generally, there is immune system involvement, and treatment generally focuses on suppressing immune system activity. A variety of other diseases and conditions can have vasculitis as a complication. The condition affects many of the body systems, and can cause symptoms such as fever, abdominal pain, nose bleeds, bloody cough, heart attack, vision loss, and arthritis. To learn more about vasculitis, click here. For Laura, her case was nearly fatal. Although she survived, she was dependent on oxygen and had other problems with her kidneys as well.
Laura’s latest problems began to appear this past December. She was experiencing drastic fluctuations in blood pressure and was afflicted with severe headaches. Her mother Sadie urged her to visit the hospital, but she was hesitant that the hospital wouldn’t treat her for headaches. She also had severe stomach pains for a number of years, which nobody could get to the bottom of now. Her family wonders if that could have been the early symptoms of the underlying condition.
Now, Sadie and the rest of Laura’s family are left wondering why she was not referred to the hospital after her visit with the general practitioner. The following morning, Laura was having trouble breathing, and paramedics were too late to keep her alive. It unclear if any of Laura’s prior health problems had increased her risk of stroke, but it seems likely that vasculitis could have played a role; the condition is known to increase stroke risk, but she had recovered from the acute effects of vasculitis at the time of her death.
Ultimately, it seems possible that Laura’s general practitioner was not aware of the potential risks that could come with vasculitis. Many service providers lack sufficient information about rare diseases, and tragically, as in Laura’s case, this lack of knowledge can have fatal consequences.
