Sick relative on ventilator with no diagnosis - need ideas?

Drs are not doing much more searching & any ideas of illnesses / disease would help. Symptoms are:
Began with pnemonia, vomiting, could not control bowels, fever, short of breath.
Now in ICU on venilator, disfunctioning kidneys & liver, white blood cell count regular (not spiked to be fighting anything), constant fever, fluid filling up lungs & no improvement. Drs check lots of things; family just looking for ideas. Extremely desperate! Please offer any ideas!!!

I hate to be negative, but it sounds like your relative has moved into ARDS (Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome).

Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS) is an acute, severe injury to most or all of both lungs. Patients with ARDS experience severe shortness of breath and often require mechanical ventilation (life support) because of respiratory failure. ARDS is not a specific disease; instead, it is a type of severe, acute lung dysfunction that is associated with a variety of diseases, such as pneumonia, shock, sepsis (a severe infection in the body) and trauma. ARDS can be confused with congestive heart failure, which is another common condition that can also cause acute respiratory distress. The term Acute Lung Injury "ALI" is sometimes used in the same setting as ARDS, but also includes less severe instances of generalized, acute lung injury.

Instead of printing out a bunch of information on this page, go to this link for a complete explanation of ARDS. If your relative's doctors have not mentioned this, it would be prudent to bring it up. Sorry about the bad news. If things don't change soon (especially with renal failure), the outcome could be dire. I hope this helps a little in your quest for information.

http://www.ards.org/learnaboutards/whati...

i would start calling and and every specialist you can find and get more opnions and help. this website sure isn't going to help someone that needs so much medical help

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