But because of \u201cmedical scepticism, the parents encouraged poor adherence to the antibiotic regime\u201d.<\/p>\n
Antibiotics were prescribed but not used in the case involving a 9-year-old girl whose minor eyelid infection worsened to a life-threatening degree, the authors of a New Zealand Medical Journal report say. <\/p>\n
Instead, diluted silver nitrate was topically applied to the infected area twice a day.<\/p>\n
Four days later the girl was taken back to hospital with worsening swelling and tenderness, and an MRI confirmed all her sinuses were infected, as well as around her eye, and she had Pott\u2019s puffy tumour \u2013 a fluid-filled lump that can be life-threatening.<\/p>\n
She also had a superior sagittal sinus thrombosis, where one of the sinuses that drain blood from her brain had clotted, Arnold said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt can be very serious, very quickly and not uncommonly lead to death if untreated. She had to have urgent surgery where otherwise we probably could\u2019ve avoided things with just medical treatment.\u201d<\/p>\n
The girl’s eyelid (left) when first seen by doctors, but the swelling had increased (right) when she went back to hospital four days later. Photo \/ New Zealand Medical Journal<\/p>\n
The girl \u201cabsolutely\u201d could have died, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe infection itself was advanced and needed IV [intravenous] antibiotics and the site of infection needed surgical drainage \u2026 and then she was also given an extended course of treatment and monitoring for that dural venous sinus thrombosis [a stroke caused by a blood clot in the brain\u2019s venous drainage channels], which is the complications of the infection.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo she could\u2019ve died from the infection, and could\u2019ve died from complications from the infection.\u201d <\/p>\n
The girl was on intravenous antibiotics for six weeks, the first two in hospital after her discharge was delayed by her parents\u2019 reluctance to provide a home address for continuing outpatient treatment.<\/p>\n
She has since fully recovered.<\/p>\n
The girl\u2019s parents hadn\u2019t indicated they were against the prescribed medicine when she was initially seen for her then-minor infection, Arnold said.<\/p>\n
When her condition worsened, her parents contacted a surgeon their friend knew \u2013 another example of mistrusting the system, he said.<\/p>\n
The girl’s parents “didn\u2019t trust doctors, they didn\u2019t trust politicians, they didn\u2019t trust any institutions”, ophthalmology registrar Dr Morgan Arnold says.<\/p>\n
Once back in hospital<\/a>, it still took \u201ca lot to convince them we needed to treat [her]\u201d even though they\u2019d been told their daughter\u2019s condition was life-threatening.<\/p>\n It was \u201cvery hard\u201d to get an explanation for their reluctance, Arnold said.<\/p>\n \u201cA whole bunch of mistrust of medicine and institutions and modern science as a whole without being able to drill into any reasoning for it. <\/p>\n \u201cThey very much didn\u2019t trust doctors, they didn\u2019t trust politicians, they didn\u2019t trust any institutions.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018Massive\u2019 increase in misinformation since pandemic<\/p>\n In New Zealand and globally, medical care was increasingly complicated by rising health misinformation, which had \u201cmassively increased\u201d after the Covid-19 pandemic<\/a> and in connection with increased social media use, Arnold and Elder wrote in their report.<\/p>\n In 2022, a baby boy needing life-saving heart surgery was placed under the temporary guardianship of the High Court after his parents opposed him receiving transfused blood from vaccinated donors.<\/p>\n