Meningococcal Disease Background Meningococcal disease is a severe, life-threatening illness that may manifest as meningitis, bacteremia, or bacteremic pneumonia. Even with antibiotic treatment, mortality due to invasive disease is 10-15%. Up to 20% of persons who...
One thing I always encourage is critical thinking. Reviewing a diagnosis list will give you clues as to the likely medications that a patient is taking or should be taking if they are following guideline-based medication therapy. In this Bactrim CHF case study, I...
I stumbled into this case about Valtrex neurotoxicity on Linked In, and am so thankful that Kristin Speer, PharmD, BCPS let me share it. A physician attached a message for the care team to review: “Patient continues with dizziness, hallucinations, and...
ES is a 61-year-old female who is a resident in a long-term care facility. She has a history of drug abuse, early-onset dementia, GERD, chronic pain, and osteoarthritis. Her current medications include gabapentin 100 mg TID, donepezil 10 mg HS, omeprazole 20 mg in the...
An 89-year-old female has a history of frequent UTIs. She has been taking ciprofloxacin for UTI prophylaxis at 250 mg once daily for about 1 year. She has not had a UTI since starting on the ciprofloxacin. She takes it in the morning with her breakfast. She has a...
GF is a 77 year old male with a past medical history of BPH, COPD, hypertension, constipation, Barrett’s esophagus, and anemia. Of late, he has had recurrent pneumonia episodes requiring frequent antibiotic use. He has had 3 courses of antibiotics within the...