Because small children have difficulty in describing their agony, pediatricians and parents are left to interpret what they believe is happening. In a recent raw juice outbreak, two children were turned away from Emergency Rooms because they were not deemed to be sick enough. Health care cost reductions conspire against diagnosis by discouraging physicians from ordering the full panel of foodborne stool and blood tests. As the infection progresses, the diarrhea can turn red with blood. At first, red blood cells and individual platelet are shredded, leaving the victim vulnerable to brain hemorrhaging and uncontrolled bleeding.
Preliminary treatment can consist of blood transfusions or plasma replacement.
Clots form in the bloodstream, blocking the minute filtration vessels in the kidneys, the middle layer of the heart and the brain. As the kidneys cease to function, the body swells with excess waste fluids, necessitating dialysis. Life threatening complications often involve the cardiopulmonary, neurological and gastrointestinal systems and can appear as strokes, paralysis, heart failure, or intestinal perforations. Thus, a pathogenic E. coli infection in a child is a devastating illness. Both cattle and deer are known to be reservoirs of pathogenic E. coli.