Pollution on the St. Francis River, Missouri
Article posted on KansasWhitewater.org April 21, 2005
http://www.kansaswhitewater.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=602
| Posted: Thu Apr 21, 2005 3:20 pm Post subject: Be aware when paddling the Saint | |
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| Things everyone should be aware of
if they plan on paddling on the Saint Francis river in Missouri. Every year at least a handful of people come down with a very dangerous sickness caused by gardia, lepto, or crypto. These microbes can cause flu-like symptoms. If not taken care of quickly they can result in perminant damage to your internal organs and even death. I have even heard that people have died after paddling on the Saint, although I cannot corroberate this story. I have first-hand knowledge of this as I came down with what was a very mild case. Other local paddlers have had to go to rehab after catching one of these little bugs. The Saint has a lot of pig farms around the river and the watershed. This causes fecal matter to make its way into the river. gardia, lepto and crypto are all microbes that are contained in the fecal matter so be very careful when boating on the Saint. The following post below cames from the missouriwhitewater.org website message board about one of their paddlers getting sick. http://www.missouriwhitewater.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=445 _________________ Shawn ---------------------------------------- www.kansaswhitewater.org |
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Article posted on MissouriWhitewater.org April 15, 2005. Several other comments are also posted.
http://www.missouriwhitewater.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=445
| Posted: Fri Apr 15, 2005 7:53 pm Post subject: Lepto | |
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| I haven't been this sick in I can't
remember when. Last week before the clinic I came down with headache,
fever, chills, nausea, within the incubation period of running the Saint
at bridge level. I took 6 doses of Keflex and got immediately better.
Then Wednesday, exactly a week since the first onset of symptoms and
right on schedule the thing came back around and hit me in the wazoo
again. I took to the bed Wednesday with one of the worst headaches of my
life, went to the doc that afternoon who drained a gallon of blood (for
testing), gave me a stool sample kit (oh LOVELY!) and sent me back to my
bed with a 2 week supply of Doxycycline and a five day supply of vicoden
that's already nearly gone. Today is the first day I've been up, and
that was just long enough to turn in my stool sample (and that tells you
a little more about how my life sucks right now!). In the meantime I've
been spending my time sweating, shivering, puking, wanting to just cut
my damn head off because it isn't worth the pain it was causing me. So here it is, Kiddies the straight dope on it straight from the CDC: http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dbmd/diseaseinfo/leptospirosis_g.htm Bonnie printed this off and I just handed it to the doc, "Here's what I think it might be and here's why!". No guff, he went in, consulted his little book, decided it was worth a try and then placed my copy in his record of me. That's some good medicine! I'm not really ready for it but I'm going back to work tomorrow. My fever is broken and I'm keeping solid food down (so far). I can't pass it to my co-workers unless they drink my urine, and if anyone at the firehouse is doing that I don't want to know about it (and they'd deserve what they'd get!). If I decide I can't make it I'll come home and, the way I look (like death warmed over), no one is going to question it. _________________ Never put off for tomorrow what you can avoid doing altogether |
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Article on CDC's website:
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dbmd/diseaseinfo/files/Leptospirosis_FAQ.pdf
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