Ohio man Brandon Baker’s broken tooth leads to open-heart surgery

Lifestyle

By Joshua Lynch

A man who had his broken tooth pulled was told by doctors he was suffering from a bad strain of the flu — only to reveal to TikTok that he actually had a full-body, blood infection that led to a 7-month medical odyssey.

Ohio native Brandon Baker, reportedly in his 20s, was driving to work when he suddenly felt “as sick as I have ever felt in my life.”

Instead of turning around to see a doctor immediately, Baker continued his route to work and only sought help when he began to feel worse.

Baker claimed he was originally diagnosed with the flu, but it was just the beginning of his health scare.

Baker began to shred weight from struggling to digest food in his body, claiming he lost up to almost 50 pounds over the next few weeks

“I have never felt that way in my entire life,” Baker said, adding that he “he went to the doctor many times.”

Baker said one morning he fell unconscious in the shower for nearly half an hour, leaving him no option but to take another trip to the ER — where he was diagnosed with a boatload of symptoms this time.

Baker was diagnosed with meningitis, bronchitis, and pneumonia as doctors believed it was caused by a bad flu.

“I was finally admitted (to the hospital) over the next three days, but they really weren’t able to do anything because it was a really bad flu year and they were very understaffed,” Baker said. 

Doctors pulled fluid out of Baker’s lungs from excess shower water trapped in his body but still had no idea why he wasn’t breathing properly.

“They sent me to the ICU, where they yelled at me because I wasn’t breathing properly and threatened to intubate me,” Baker recalled.

He was transferred to a state hospital where doctors told him he suffered from a severe, full-body, near-septic blood infection and developed bacterial endocarditis as a result

Bacterial endocarditis is a “life-threatening inflammation of the inner lining of the heart’s chambers and valves,” according to the Mayo Clinic.

“Unfortunately, they found a massive infection on one of the leaflets on my mitral valve,” Baker recalled. “I spent like about 10 days or so at that hospital, then was sent home to be on at home antibiotics for about six weeks.”

Two weeks later, Baker had undergone mandatory open-heart surgery “to replace one of the leaflets on my microvalve that was destroyed by the infection.”

Baker traced his health nightmare back to his pulled, broken tooth seven months before the ordeal.

He hadn’t fixed his broken tooth for months due to not having good insurance but made sure to keep it clean.

Baker claimed he never received antibiotics, which would’ve saved him from getting slammed with over $830,000 in medical debt, when he finally had enough money to get his tooth fixed

“Am I now *terrified* I’ve been ignoring a broken tooth? Yes. Will I actually call the dentist tomorrow? No,” one user commented.

“Medical trauma is so real and it is not talked about enough. I’m so sorry you went thru that,” a replier expressed with sympathy.

“Ngl I got up from this and brushed my teeth like I’ve never done before,” another terrified commenter read.