Lisa Sanders, Something Fishy. At first it was just a sore wrist, but soon the pain was unbearable. Even steroids didn't help. What brought this on? New York Times Magazine, Dec 20, 2020. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/ ... terium-marinum.html
Note:
(a) bring on (vt): "to cause to appear or occur <this legislation will surely bring on some unintended consequences>" https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/bring%20on
(b) "since the pandemic hit she had been on the computer more than ever. That first day she thought it must be an overuse injury."
(i) By "overuse injury," the medical term is carpal tunnel syndrome.
(ii) The carpal is an English adjective derived from Latin noun carpus wrist. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/carpus
(c) "That rheumatologist diagnosed something called pseudogout. In this disorder, a calcium compound [crystals actually] created in the body is deposited in joints, causing pain and swelling. The rheumatologist prescribed a hefty dose of prednisone and another anti-inflammatory drug, colchicine, which is used to treat gout as well as pseudogout."
(i) Gout is caused by high level of uric acid in blood, depositing monosodium urate at joints.
(ii) Pseudogout is a
calcium pyrophosphate dihydrate crystal deposition (CPPD) disease https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ca ... _deposition_disease
("When symptomatic, the disease classically begins with symptoms that are similar to a gout attack (thus the monicker 'pseudogout'). * * * The cause of CPPD disease is unknown")
(iii) The colchicine (accent in the last syllable, which is pronounced the same as sin) -- in ancient times coming from autumn crocus (Colchicum autumnale), hence its name in Taiwan 秋水仙素 -- was described in Greek literature for medicinal use circa 1500 BC. Its mechanism of action in either gout or pseudogout is unclear.
(d) " 'Have you cleaned a fish lately?' the doctor [Lana Bernstein] asked. The question surprised the patient. Yes, she had. Months earlier, before all this had started, her daughter had ordered three branzinos from the market. Normally the patient’s husband, an avid fisherman, would have cleaned them, but he had just had shoulder surgery. So he coached from the sidelines as she scaled and cleaned them. It was a mess. By the time she was done, there were fish scales and drops of her blood everywhere. But the fish cooked just beautifully. Bernstein nodded. Around the patient's thumb were several tiny bumps that seemed to line up going from the tip of her thumb toward her wrist. Bernstein recognized this as a sign of a rare infection, caught from fish — often while scaling them. Indeed, this infection, caused by a cousin of tuberculosis, mycobacterium marinum (M.M.), is sometimes called fish handlers’ disease. Bernstein had seen it once before, years earlier. The organism enters the body through a cut or scrape in the skin. Once in, it grows slowly, then travels the body by way of the lymphatic system, which is why the disease’s characteristic nodules and ulcers often appear in the lines formed by the underlying lymph vessels. Bernstein suspected that the infection in the thumb had spread to the patient’s hand and wrist — and that the steroids the patient took contributed to the infection's atypical swelling rather than the usual nodules."
(i)
(A) Lana Bernstein, MD. Northeast Medical Group, undated https://www.northeastmedicalgrou ... lana-bernstein.aspx
("Specialty Rheumatology")
At 48 years old, Dr Berstein is board certified in Rheumatology.
Northeast Medical Group has 182 locations in southern and central Connecticut, and multiple doctors.
Lana (given name) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lana_(given_name)
(B) About Us. Yale New Haven Health System, undated https://www.ynhhs.org/about.aspx
("Connecticut's leading healthcare system, consisting of Bridgeport, Greenwich, Lawrence + Memorial, Yale New Haven and Westerly hospitals, and Northeast Medical Group, a physician foundation of primary care and medical specialists")
(ii) European bass https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_bass
(Dicentrarchus labrax; In North America it is widely known by its Italian name, branzino; the most common size [of an adult] is only about half of that at 0.5 m (1.6 ft) )
(iii) The mycobacterium marinum is simply wrong. The genus name always has its first letter capitalized.
(A) Latin-Englis dictionary:
* marinus (adjective masculine; from noun neuter mare sea + -īnus): "marine" https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/marinus
(nominative neuter: marinum) )
(B) Sami M Akram and Shamma Aboobacker, Mycobacterium Marinum. StatPearls, Apr 16, 2020. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK441883/
(C) Aubry A, Mougari F, Reibel F and Cambau E, Mycobacterium marinum. Microbiology Spectrum, 5: 735-752 (2017). https://www.researchgate.net/pub ... cobacterium_marinum
Only view figures.
(D) Another species of bacteria in the same genus, Mycobacterium tuberculosis causes tuberculosis.