Fear of Poisoning
It's been a weird week.
One guy I'd never met before who works as a tech in another department upstairs came to the nurses' station and started talking to me as if we were good friends. He then asked me if I could run a blood sample on him to check for heavy metals, because he was afraid his wife was trying to poison him. He didn't want to be evaluated, he just wanted me to draw his blood and somehow order a heavy metal screen, off the record.
As if.
Then tonight we get toothbrush dude. He'd just bought a new toothbrush, and after using it his gums felt tingly, so he suspected that someone had clandestinely laced it with some sort of toxic chemical substance. He brought the toothbrush with him in a Ziplock bag so that we could have it analyzed.
(photo credit)
posted by scalpel at 2:54 AM
13 Comments:
Holy crap, Mr. Wayne moved to Texas! Woohoo!
Years ago I had a patient who thought his wife had poisoned him. After his stomach was emptied, we had about 500 ml. of coffee layered with about 200 ml. of an oily substance later found to be an insecticide. I asked him why he drank it, and he said: "She never did make very good coffee."
Well frankly I would like to have a heavy metal screen - just in case. As far as I know symptoms can be very subtle and you can never know for sure (you could be exposed trough water for example)
How did you handle the toothbrush guy?
For the second guy: a close brush with death.
feels like a full moon lately doesn't it? I swear every patient was nuts yesterday...
OMG, I totally forgot about your Mr. Wayne. I hope it's not the same guy.
If anyone hasn't read about Mr. Wayne yet, this is a must read.
LMAO!
Wow - It never ceases to amaze me how bizarre people are. Unfortunately, about a year ago I had a guy brought in for SOB by his wife - he turned out to be massively acidotic and had ethylene glycol poisoning. Guess who eventually owned up to doing it? The not-looking-too-concerned-when-I-told-her -he-might-die wife.
"I've been poisoned!" in a seemingly non-schizophrenic/hypochondriac patient is nearly a universal euphemism for "I just OD'd on some drugs and/or got really drunk at a rave/party, and I feel like crap!"
Time for the first guy to get a divorce...and time for the other guy to buy toothbrushes in bulk. Wow...
Funny...although not to them. :)
Reminds me of my own experience where I had something gross in the bottom of my coffee that I had been drinking all the way home and then the final gulp had something, big, slimy, chunky and gross which I promptly spit back onto the cup. I was internally hysterical but remained calm when first entering my house. Proceeded to make many phone calls because I wanted it analyzed as I thought something like semen or something hocked up was intentionally put in the cup. Of course it wasn't semen but my mind was reeling with possibilities. If it was in your mouth you would understand.
So, I understand their fear although mine was because of what was in my mouth and maybe seeing CSI at the time.
Scalpel,if you pr anyone want to read about it, I wrote it as a 3 part post called "WHAT is in MY MOUTH???" Pt I, Pt II and Pt III.
It's embarrassing to think I reacted so strongly but even men were grossed out. I did end up bringing the specimen to work that nite and a lab tech analyzed it...off the record. Also brought the other half of the sample to private doc the next day.
And of course delete this if not appropriate here Scalpel. :)
Oh and those posts were put up in January 2007.
Post a Comment
<< Home