Surgeon Robert Whitfield discovered a massive E. coli infection in a patient's breast implant that earlier doctors missed. The bacterial count exceeded 10^5 CFU. After targeted antibiotics, the patient's chronic fatigue resolved within a month.
She has an E. coli infection. Not a smattering of E. coli, a true— Crapload. A medical crapload infection. And just so the audience knows, for a hospital to identify that, there is greater than 10 to the 5th or 100,000 bacteria in that sample. And so I was pretty taken aback by that. I had missed a breast implant infection. I hadn't missed a small amount of contamination. I'd missed an entire occult infection. And so that really bothered me. And I— so I went back through all the notes and I talked to my team. I was like, uh, I don't— what is going on here? And because it was done in a hospital, as you know, they'll create an antibiotic sensitivity profile for it. And I, as tradition, I followed that, uh, profile. I put her on antibiotics, and what do you know, magically her fatigue was all better in a month.
You mean chronic infections anywhere in the body make people feel tired and have all sorts of unpredicted things when bacteria make bacterial toxins and circulate them around in your body?
Yeah, it was, it was pretty shocking.
