A tick bite has led to the partial amputation of both legs and both arms of an Oklahoma woman as doctors fought to save her life as Rocky Mountain spotted fever ravaged her body.
Health officials say Jo Rogers, 40, may have suffered the tick bite while vacationing in Grand Lake, Oklahoma early last month.
Four days after that vacation ended she began experiencing flu-like symptoms and was admitted to a hospital.
While on a ventilator in a medically-induced coma, doctors fought to save her life from the bacteria Rickettsia rickettsia, transmitted by ticks.
As her limbs turned black and blue, doctors were forced to amputate her arms below the elbows and the legs below the knees.
Deaths from Rocky Mountain spotted fever are rare, because it can be treated with antibiotics.
However, for the treatment to be effective it must be started within 5 days of infection, experts explain, and Rogers' disease likely turned more severe than usual because she "received treatment outside of that window," says Dr. Amesh Adalja, an infectious-disease specialist at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center's Center for Health Security.
The bacteria, delivered through a tick bite, attacks and damages cells that line the body's blood vessels, causing a dangerous drop in blood pressure. It could lead to septic shock as the body begins to move blood to vital organs while cutting off flow to the limbs, causing tissue in the extremities to die.
This can require amputation, like the case with Rogers, doctors say.
According to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, initial symptoms of Rocky Mountain spotted fever can include high temperatures, headache, abdominal and muscle pain, rash, nausea and vomiting.
The disease can be difficult for doctors to diagnose because the symptoms can vary from person to person and can easily be mistaken for more common diseases such as West Nile virus, meningitis and other infections, the CDC says.
With early treatment most people can recover from Rocky Mountain spotted fever, although if left untreated is has a fatality rate of almost 75 percent.
Five U.S. states -- Oklahoma is one of them -- have infection rates 3 to ten times the national average, with summer seeing the most cases.
Not all tick bites will result in the disease, as just one to three percent of ticks carry the dangerous bacteria, the Oklahoma health department says.
