The diagnosis was agreed.
Queens woman Dana Smith, 37, almost died after getting a nose piercing infection.
Smith was rushed to the hospital in late January with a mysterious infection that doctors later found to be related to the $ 60 piercing.
She told CBS New York that she had lost her appetite in the weeks after implanting the tiny diamond clove above her left nostril on a whim during the Thanksgiving holiday.
Soon after realizing that he was unable to tolerate food, Smith began to experience severe stomach pains.
“I didn’t want to go to the hospital with COVID going on,” she told the station. “I got to the point where I felt I had no choice.”
Her liver started to fail and she was put into an induced coma shortly after arriving at Long Island Jewish and North Shore University Hospital.
There, doctors diagnosed Smith with very rare liver failure.
“Fulminant liver failure occurs when you are perfectly healthy, get a virus and, in two months, go into a coma,” said Dr. Lewis Tepperman, director of transplants at the Sandra Atlas Liver Disease Center at North Shore University Hospital.
When she woke up from a coma, Smith learned that the infection had worsened so much that the medical team had had a liver transplant.
“I thought I just had a stomach virus or just something in my stomach,” said Smith. “I would never have thought that my liver was failing and that there was a chance that I wouldn’t be here today.”
By the process of elimination, doctors discovered that Smith’s nose ring had been infected with hepatitis B, which caused his illnesses to appear.
“We couldn’t find out until all the tape was removed from his nose,” said Tepperman.
“I said, ‘Look. When did you get this? It’s so small, ‘and she then told us it was right at the end of Thanksgiving. ”
Hospitals have seen a recent increase in patients with liver failure.
“I think it has to do with the fact that people don’t come to the hospital promptly and early enough to be treated,” said Dr. Tepperman.
Smith, the mother of a teenage daughter, is encouraging others to seek medical attention as soon as they start experiencing pain, discomfort or serious illness.
“Even with COVID going on, you still have to check out, because you never know,” she said. “That decision saved my life.”