Ankylosing spondylitis is killing my dad?
Hello and thank you in advance for your answers.
I will try to keep it as short as I can and will try to follow the timeline of the things that happened.
- Until by this time last year, dad was a semi-healthy man, had tuberculosis in his youth, but solved it in the late 80s, now he had Ankylosing spondylitis for at least 20 years which he treated daily with pills.
- Last October he had a massive shock. Grandma, his mother-in-law, 95 had an accident that led to dementia in just 3 days and one night she tried to break both his and my mum's head in a terrible fit she had.
- Due to the shock, the next day dad looked lost and during the night he had a fever and chills.
- Two months later after multiple doctor visits, he was rushed to the hospital with a swollen body full of liquids.
- He was on and off the hospital from December until April and things were not good. Went to hospital, liquid drained, went home, repeat. They gave him some medicine and also took out from his regime the medicine he took for spondylitis (I later found ou about this)
- In April he was rushed to the hospital, but this time we went to another one. He was rushed after a talk with a doctor in the private sector.
- There he was diagnosed with pericarditis and given a treatement. If it did not work, he had to undergo surgery.
- He lost a lot of weight, had 65 kg, but did not have liquids anymore. He was okish for three months.
- In july went to talk to the surgen about the operation, again he was fit, went on his feet with mum. They talked about how he will open him up, etc. Three days later he was rushed to the hospital, same as usual, water, etc, but this time was release with oxygen at home.
- Finally in august went to the hospital for the operation, went on monday, but because of a mixup, the operation was delayed. He was ok until Saturday. After he woke up, he was told by his roomates that he "slept agitated" and seemed like he was suffocating. Later that day he was intubated.
Since August he is ICU and the following things happened:
- Got surgery, everything was ok, however he is not able to breathe alone more than 2 days.
- He was intubated for one month, he reached 47 kg. (now he has 41)
- After one month they did a tracheostomy. Worked for about 2 weeks until he got pneumonia.
- They analyzed it and found that he has aspiration penumonia. Basically he has ... food in his lungs.
- They did last week a stomach intervention for PEG feeding.
We are in this situation now from august. The official theory is that he has pleurisy and that is causing all of this + Ankylosing spondylitis, without the medicine for 8 months, did some damage.
All the results of cancer, leukemia, bacteria, infections came back negative. He also never had covid and had two Pfizer jabs so far.
So, that is about it. How can this happen? How can pleurisy and Ankylosing spondylitis kill do such damage? Or they are missing something?
The last scenario is that the ankylosing spondylitis is pushing his lungs so bad is killing him.
Thank you in advance for your kind answers
Sulfasalazine is a wonderful first line medication. I wish you father the very best. It sounds like he is in for a long recovery. ................. rick
I am sorry but I did not find additional information. Sometimes these case studies are done to serve as early warning information for practitioners. It severs as a flag to mark something unusual.
I am sorry o cannot provide more help.
Rick
Thank you. That helped a lot.
I am so sorry you are dealing with this difficult situation. I know the care and condition of your father must be so frustrating. I am sorry it has happened to your family.
Unfortunately, I do not think any of us can give an adequate answer. I say this for two reasons. First, we are not doctors, and as such, we never offer medical opinions. Second, if we did give them, we would need to see the charts, examine your father and consider all the available evidence—something no online community can do.
Now I will say one thing that does hold true. AS can cause a person's spine to press against the lungs, and it can be tough to breathe. This can create harm if a person is prone for a long time or has lung inflammation. That AS is a full-body condition, and that is often misunderstood and while I cannot speak about your father's case it has been known to occur.................... rick (moderator)
Thank you, Rick.
The reason I am here is that I am fighting with my last resort on trying to understand what is happening to him and I am searching for multiple inputs outside my country.
Some logic into all of this madness.
He's been more in the hospital than it was at home since last October and they did multiple CTs on his lungs. How is it possible they missed this? He did it in two different hospitals, if not three.
He was taking Sulfasalazine. They stopped giving him that because it was anti-inflammatory. I had no idea he stopped taking those only after he was intubated. He took it before for at least 15 years.
