An unfortunate story appears in KRDO describing a seventeen year old man who had two impacted wisdom teeth extracted in October 2022 in Colorado. Seven days after the procedure the man started coughing up blood and ever since then his health has deteriorated. Prior to the surgery the teenager was in good health regularily lifting weights and playing with his siblings in his home state of Colorado.
As reported in March 2023, now the man over four months later is an inpatient at a hospital and struggles to walk from a hospital bed to a bathroom that is five feet away. Two days after he started coughting up blood he went into septic shock where he was placed on a ventilator and moved into the intensive care unit of a hospital. His family is in a constant state of fear and consider what happened to be a nightmare. The teenagers mother regularily drives from her home to stay with her son at the Children’s Hospital he is in.
Doctors who examined the teenager first thought he had multifocal double pneumonia. However, he did not get better and it is now reported that doctors believe the man has a rare autoimmune disease named vasculitis that impacts his blood vessels. With vasculitis the body is under attack by its own immune system and attacks its own blood vessels. It is not clear exactly what caused the vasculitis to develop and genetic factors are believed to be important to the disease. Even so some cases of vasculitis can caused by reactions to medicines. It is unclear exactly what medications the man was given when he had his wisdom teeth surgery and unclear exactly what about the wisdom teeth surgery lead to the flare up in the vasculitis.
The teenager currently struggles to breathe and is currently awaiting a lung transplant and there is no timetable on his return home. He regularly interacts with doctors and nurses and of course has numerous medical bills that are adding up. The family has setup a fundraiser on GoFundMe to help pay for his medical expenses.
It was discovered that the lungs are not the only organ that was severly damaged and impacted by the vasculitis. The teenager had his spleen destroyed to a nonfunctional point, and suffered from mild to moderate damage to his kidneys. A video of the news story from KRDO has been posted on YouTube which has received numerous comments.
As has been discussed before on this site wisdom teeth removal can lead to complications. This site’s author does not recall seeing another case where a person ha wisdom teeth surgery and shortly thereafter is in need of a lung transplant. It surely is unfortunate. The family states it is very rare and even if someone has vasculitis it is unlikely it would flare up severely to cause damage like in this teenagers case.
Source:
1. Annabelle Childers, “17-year-old hospitalized and being considered for lung transplant following wisdom teeth surgery”, March 6, 2023, KRDO, https://krdo.com/news/2023/03/06/17-year-old-hospitalized-and-in-need-of-lung-transplant-following-wisdom-teeth-surgery/
2. GoFundMe, “Lonnie: 17 Year Old’s Lung Transplant” https://www.gofundme.com/f/ourlandingcrew?utm_medium=referral&utm_source=unknown&utm_campaign=comms_kslp+ourlandingcrew