Hunan woman was poisoned by taking homemade “fire-reducing” remedies, experts warn: serious can be fatal

“Poisoning incidents caused by remedies and secret recipes occur every year in various places. The mild cases are hospitalized, the severe cases are life-threatening, and some even the whole family is ‘hit’!” said Lai Yan, chief physician of the Hunan Provincial Occupational Disease Prevention and Control Institute. Every year, the department treats many patients with severe poisoning who are transferred from other hospitals. Among them, there are living poisoning patients of different ages and different cultural levels, which should be paid attention to.

At 13:00 on February 24, 56-year-old Auntie Li from Xiangxiang City was transferred to Hunan because of sore throat, abdominal pain, vomiting and diarrhea for 5 days. Department of Poisoning Medicine, Provincial Occupational Disease Prevention and Control Institute. The doctor Xiao Chunxia recalled that Aunt Li was exhausted and lethargic when she first arrived at the hospital. The medical and nursing team immediately completed the relevant examinations, carefully traced the medical history, and conducted a comprehensive analysis based on the relevant examination results of other hospitals. Finally, the cause was finally found out: it turned out that Auntie Li had eaten the homemade “fire-reducing” folk remedies on the day of the onset. She told the doctor that she felt “inflamed”, so she made a pot of “herbal tea” to drink according to the “old remedies” with a few Chinese herbal medicines. Unexpectedly, immediately after taking it, she developed a burning sore throat, which did not ease after inducing vomiting, and even worsened. Abdominal pain, vomiting, diarrhea and other symptoms appeared, so she went to the local hospital overnight for treatment accompanied by her family.

“When we traced the medical history, we found a highly suspicious ‘poison’.” Chief physician Lai Yan said that we keenly caught the “herbal tea” The “plaster” in it was not purchased at a pharmacy, but was picked up by the patient from a cement factory near his home many years ago. The details are unknown. Therefore, the patient was immediately tested for poison, and the laboratory reported that the arsenic in the patient’s body still exceeded the normal level 6 days after the onset of the disease, and the “gypsum” submitted for inspection contained a large amount of arsenic. The patient was definitively diagnosed with arsenic poisoning. At present, after 5 days of arsenic expelling treatment, the condition is significantly relieved than before.

She reminded that realgar, orpiment, arsenic, and arsenic are all arsenic-containing drugs, and excessive or long-term use may lead to arsenic poisoning. Oral ingestion of large amounts of arsenic compounds can cause acute arsenic poisoning. Patients often experience nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, diarrhea within minutes or hours after oral administration, and in severe cases, dehydration symptoms and even toxic shock. Severe poisoning patients are often combined with damage to multiple organs such as liver, kidneys, and myocardium; chronic arsenic poisoning is mostly occupational arsenic poisoning, which manifests as poisoning symptoms in the digestive system, blood system, respiratory system, circulatory system, urinary system, and skin. She appealed to the public not to listen to remedies and secret recipes, and the risks of self-preparing medicines are extremely high. If you experience the above discomfort, you should be alert to the possibility of poisoning, and go to a regular hospital for poison testing as soon as possible, and timely and standardized treatment.

Xia Sheng, reporter of Xiaoxiang Morning News, Wen Na, Xiao Chunxia, ​​correspondent

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