Woman Loses 90% of Skin to Toxic Epidermal Necrolysis

Woman Loses 90% of Skin to Toxic Epidermal Necrolysis

By John Curran

The overwhelming majority of people who take antibiotics will never have to deal with prescription side effects like Stevens Johnson Syndrome, a severe skin disease, or its more serious counterpart, Toxic Epidermal Necrolysis. As Stevens Johnson Syndrome lawsuit attorneys and their clients will tell you, that doesn’t make the severe pain of losing large swaths of skin that much easier. Many sufferers of Stevens Johnson Syndrome symptoms will have to be chemically sedated for weeks as skin grafts are performed and heal.

Such grafts are usually performed by taking skin from the thighs and buttocks, where skin is flatter and there is less folding when people move around. That’s not an option for one Toxic Epidermal Necrolysis (TENS) patient, who has lost nearly 90 percent of her skin after taking a variant of the antibiotic amoxicillin. The disease spreads quickly, and a rash developed from the amoxicillin side effects within 24 hours. Not only did the Toxic Epidermal Necrolysis leave her looking like a third-degree burn victim, her entire digestive tract and uterus were blistered.

Antibiotic side effects lawsuit attorneys will note that the outlook for many of these victims is poor at best. Not only are Stevens Johnson Syndrome (SJS) sufferers faced with potential death, but even if they are able to survive, the monetary and mental costs are high. The woman faces hospital bills for a month of care of $27,000 as well as plastic surgery and eye surgery down the road. In the United States, the cost of care for antibiotics side effects victims could be two times that, if not even more. Early diagnosis is critical to reduce the risk of Toxic Epidermal Necrolysis. However, amoxicillin side effect symptoms are not obvious: simple rashes are the most common, but resemble heat rash. Even worse, Toxic Epidermal Necrolysis lawsuit attorneys have to tell their clients that they only had 24 hours to try and get it treated.