The patient of the week in the “House” is a teenage girl. Her extremities are severely swollen and there is no background history available to work out the medication. A highly experimental medicine is tried to get the truth out of the patient but proves to be of no use. Meanwhile the team is suspecting Rhabdo short for Rhabdomyolysis. Rhabdo is caused by the breakdown of the muscle tissue. The broken tissue results in many toxic byproducts especially myoglobin. As myoglobin dissolves in the blood, it reaches kidneys. Human kidneys have poor capacity to deal with myoglobin. As the Rhabdo patients’ toxic by-products levels increase kidney failure sets in which further deteriorates the condition of the patients. The symptoms of Rhabdo are swollen limbs and decreased calcium levels in the body. As the serum calcium is being used to repair the injury. Unlike the patient in House, potassium levels are usually high in the Rhabdo patients. One of the first tests to determine whether patient is suffering with Rhabdo is serum Creatinine levels. Creatinin and urea are the main substances excreted with urine. As the kidney function is severely affected, the level of these substances is increased in the body.
The treatment is started with giving the excess fluids and electrolytes to correct the ionic balance in the body and flush out the toxic products. As the patient goes on to develop kidney failure it becomes necessary to put the patient on dialysis machine ASAP.
It is revealed that the patient in House has Vibrio Vulnificus instead of Rhabdo.
Rhabdo
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