The mystery of Kawasaki disease

The consequences of Kawasaki - especially if undiagnosed - are severe. Coronary artery ectasia, which infrequently persists, can lead to spontaneous coronary thrombosis in otherwise young healthy adults. In other words, healthy young adults can develop heart attacks as a consequence of this disease. This is documented in the article, but I'll emphasize that it's something we see (albeit rarely) in the real world.

Never expected to read an article about this on HN. I had Kawasaki's and was extremely lucky that my doctor recognized it from another case they had with a boy from the next town over.

I suffered from this disease in Montreal, Canada at the age of 5. It came on as Scarlet Fever. Eventually entire portions of my limbs were 'peeling'. The skin on my tongue peeled towards the end - that was neat...

Nothing quite like being an early case for that particular city and having doctors ask an 8 year old if they can photograph him...

Edit: What's really interesting is that a friend's cousin, only a few blocks away from where we were living was apparently diagnosed with the same thing only a few months prior.

When I read the article, I thought "surely this disease would have been on House, M.D.". And it was: http://house.wikia.com/wiki/The_Confession