What could have caused Lockjaw & send my Grandfather in coma Posted: 08-19-07 06:39am
i apologize in advance for not posting in
the right forum but im not exactly sure
where is supposed to be posted.
well here is my question anyway:
my grandfather is 85 years old and about 2
weeks ago, he slipped and fell onto some
rather sharp rocks. His forehead received
quite a nasty cut, and he was rushed to
hospital to get stitched up. The doctors
managed to clean most of the gravel and
other dirt out of the wound and stitched
it up. He was sent home the next day.
Now heres where it gets harder:
He also suffers from pollups in the
intestine. A few days after he was
released from hospital after gettin his
forehead stitched up, he started to pass
dark, lumpy blood when he went to the
toilet.
Again, he went to the hospital, doctors
just said it was pollups as usual, and
said the bleeding should fix itself in a
few days. However, the day or so after,
his jaw locked up. i.e Lockjaw.
The doctors didn't know what to do. They
weren't sure what had happened to cause
the lockjaw, as pollups supposedly in no
way could trigger lockjaw. He could not
swallow or open his mouth properly. They
ran some test + x rays, but there was no
answer.
The day after, he went into a coma. He
awoke several days later, luckily, nothing
had suffered damage eg. lungs and brain
etc was ok. However, while he had been in
a coma, doctors had come up with several
possible causes.
They at first thought one of his teeth had
gone rotten and it was infected. Thus
causing lockjaw. So they proceeded to
remove the tooth to see if the swelling
would die down. Nothing.
So then they ran some MORE tests, but
still nothing, until they thought it was
being caused by tetanus from the dirt left
in his forehead. They reopened the wound,
and cleaned it out. Now he seems better,
but has not seemed to make a full
recovery. doctors are still not sure it
was even tetanus to begin with, the
recovery may just have been a coincidence.
Now heres the question:
what could possibly have been the problem,
that it would cause lockjaw and send him
into a coma?
