The Pain of Ketek

September 8, 2006, 12:00AM. By Jane Mundy

Las Vegas, NevadaLast September, Rosalie Lentz had a nasty headache related to a sinus infection and her doctor prescribed Ketek. Nobody at that time had any idea that this drug might almost cause her death.

"It all started when I was visiting a friend out of town and had a toothache. I went to a dentist and he told me that I had a sinus infection. He gave me an antibiotic and it helped but I was concerned because I was scheduled for cataract surgery in December and knew I couldn't have surgery with a sinus problem. Around the beginning of December I still had a sinus problem and a continual headache. My doctor prescribed Ketek and guaranteed that my headache would be gone in five days.

On December 7th, I woke up and felt that someone had hit me at the base of my skull with a baseball bat. The pain was so bad I couldn't see. I am a senior citizen and am no stranger to aches and pains but this was something else. I called Larry -- my husband -- to come home right away. Something was seriously wrong with me.

I went outside, thinking fresh air would help, but the headache got worse. It was so bad by now that I was crying. I tried to lie down but at 4pm Larry took me to ER. We had to wait for hours because I wasn't dying. Finally, I saw a doctor and I had a CAT-scan. It was determined that I was bleeding from the top of my brain!

So then they called for an ambulance to take me to a hospital that specialized in neurology. I couldn't handle the pain but they were afraid to give me anything. The asked me what drugs I was taking -- I had just finished the Ketek prescription a few days before but I couldn't even think clearly and didn't tell them I took it. What an unfortunate mistake that turned out to be.

I arrived at Sunrise Hospital at 4am and was scheduled for tests that morning to see what was causing the headache. Suddenly everything became too noisy and I thought they had to move me to somewhere else that was quiet - the noise was unbearable. The noise, I found out later, was them. My heart had stopped. I was on a gurney and they were hurrying down the hall with me.

By the time I learned that my heart had stopped I was in ICCU -- intensive cardiac care unit. I was there from Dec. 7th to Dec. 19th and had countless tests, day after day. Still there was no diagnosis. I had three angiograms, another CAT-Scan and many more, totaling over $118,000.

When I eventually started to feel better, I asked the hospital staff if my chart had arrived from my doctor's office. Turns out, they hadn't even contacted my doctor - on my medical plan, my doctor wasn't allowed to go to that hospital. If they had my chart, if they had talked to my doctor, they would have known that I had taken Ketek.

To this day, they still don't know what caused the bleeding. There is no diagnosis. I had heart and lung physicians and a neurosurgeon examine me. I remember, when the headache went away, that my hospital bed was intolerable - it was agonizing to lie on. I believe that something in this medication, i.e. Ketek, had affected my nerve endings. I am not a complainer but it was excruciating.

Finally the heart specialist said, "We don't know what caused this, but you should consider a pacemaker.' I thought that, if my heart stopped when I was driving down the road, I could kill someone. So I had the packemaker inserted. After the second week, my headache began to subside and my backache went away. All my aches and pains went away.

I saw my doctor after I was discharged. "Hey, what is this about you in the hospital, you are the healthiest patient I have," he said. I didn't know about the adverse affects of Ketek until I was discharged from the hospital and read the newspapers. I told my doctor about the article and he said other patients took it and he took them off it. But he was convinced that I didn't need the pacemaker and he said that nobody would take the chance of removing it.

My Christmas was ruined, the recovery period was long. I couldn't pick up my one-year-old granddaughter and there's a lot of things I can't do now. I haven't seen anyone else with these symptoms, but I thought I should speak up because there are probably many other people who have suffered like this and don't know it was because of Ketek. I understand that doctors have now been cautioned about prescribing this drug.

My personal belief is that my doctor is suspicious but he can't tell his patient - I used to work in the business office at a hospital for 20 years and know about medical litigation. I didn't join this class action to sue anyone but to warn the public that this could happen to them."