It took nearly two years for doctors to figure out the cause of his chest pain.
In the fall of 2020, a 77-year-old man in Florida realized he had gotten one of the worst gifts imaginable—one that kept on giving.
According to a case report published in this month’s issue of Emerging Infectious Diseases, the man showed up at a Gainesville hospital with chest pain that just wouldn’t go away. For nearly two years prior, the man—a pastor living on a rural farm with dogs and goats—had been in and out of hospitals and on and off of various antibiotics.
Generally, the man wasn’t in the best health. His medical history included Type 2 diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and heart failure with reduced ejection fraction. For the latter, he had an automated implantable cardiac defibrillator (AICD) placed—and it was not his first. The man had a notable history of having gone through multiple defibrillators and revisions, including getting a new generator in 2018. Some possible reasons for such a history could include heavy use of the device and infections.