DEAR DR. GOTT:
While cleaning out my desk, I came across an envelope addressed to you in 2007. Not remembering what on earth I wrote to you about, I opened it to find a letter and copies of three articles. One was an article you wrote about a woman who had been sick for eight to ten years whom you thought may have had a staph infection. The others were also from my local paper dated 2006 about Valley Fever. I have included the letter in this one and hope that you will print it. It may save lives and will at least inform patients and doctors that this fungal disease is still around. Thank you.
Dear Dr. Gott: I read your column today about the woman who had a decade long illness after her and her husband visited the Tucson, AZ area to see their daughter. You wrote that you thought the mother may have a staph infection.
I do not work in the medical profession but am sending this information along to you, since Valley Fever is misdiagnosed so much as I also thought it had been stamped out along with so many other communicable diseases.
My first wife and I both had Valley Fever as young children. We were both raised in Bakersfield, CA which is in the San Joaquin Valley. This area is also known as “America’s Bread Basket” with many farmers constantly plowing and turning the soil over immediately after harvesting a crop of some kind. I was only five years old at the time I was infected. My grandparents came down from Modesto, CA, picked me up and took me to the coast in Hollister, CA for six weeks per my doctor’s orders. I was then taken to their home in Modesto for another six weeks. After that I was allowed to return home to Bakersfield because I appeared to be healed.
This disease left a spot on my left lung the size of a nickel but so far there have been no ill effects. I am 72 years old now and also served five years in the US Navy.
My first wife’s doctor treated her with medicine and bed rest for about six months and she got well never to be bothered with it again. She never said anything about any spots on her lungs after a physical which always included a chest X-ray.
DEAR READER:
My, my your desk must have been a bit cluttered! However, I am not one to speak since my office has been known, on occasion, to be rather untidy, with all the letters and whatnot I receive every day.
Being raised on the East coast and attending medical school in the South, Valley Fever is not something I would have thought of. However, it is certainly a possibility.
Valley Fever is a fungus which grows as mold in the soil of desert areas in the Southwest United States. It usually grows at a depth of four to twelve inches. The mold spores are spread through the air when the soil is overturned, such as during plowing and other farming activities or during fires. Infection occurs after inhalation of the these spores.
Symptoms generally resemble the flu. Cough, fever, fatigue and headache are common symptoms. Given these rather benign symptoms, most doctors, especially those unfamiliar with the infection, could easily mistake the symptoms for a cold, the flu or another harmless bacterial or viral infection. Unlike these infections, however, Valley Fever will not respond to antibiotics or antiviral medication because it is caused by a fungus. Treatment consists of antifungal medication.
Individuals who are susceptible to infection include farmers and construction workers (who have regular contact with upturned soil), pregnant women and those with weak immune systems, such as children who still have developing immune systems, and those with chronic diseases.
The good news in this situation is that there is a test available. If individuals in southern California, Nevada and New Mexico, eastern and southern Texas, and nearly all of Arizona, have flu-like symptoms that have persisted despite treatment with antibiotics, antivirals, and/or various breathing treatments, need a Valley Fever test. This can also apply to individuals who have visited these areas and developed resistant symptoms.
For individuals who live in these areas, have family there or are simply interested in learning more, I recommend you go online to www.MayoClinic.com/health/valley-fever/DS00695 or www.CDC.gov/nczved/dfbmd/disease_listing/coccidioidomycosis_gi.html for more information.
Because you mentioned having a spot on your lung, I am giving you related information, I am sending you a copy of my Health Report “Pulmonary Disease”. Other readers who would like a copy should send a self-addressed, stamped number 10 envelope and $2 to Newsletter, PO Box 167, Wickliffe, OH 44092. Be sure to mention the title.
