With the words “I am weak, and blue”, is a 25-year-old woman in Rhode Island in the emergency room. Alcohol was not in the game. In fact, had discoloured skin and nails bluish, and even your blood. The woman had used an over-the-counter drug.
It all started in pain with a tooth. The young woman used a tooth pain tincture containing the active ingredient benzocaine, to relieve their Suffering. The next Morning, she felt weak and noted that had discolored her nails and the skin bluish. She was in a hospital. There, the Doctors found that the woman’s blood was colored blue. The magazine "The New England Journal of Medicine" reported on the strange case.
The on-duty emergency doctor Otis Warren diagnosed with toxic Methemoglobinemia, a rare blood disease. The red pigment hemoglobin is oxidized to methemoglobin. This dye is not only a bluish coloration of the blood. In contrast to haemoglobin, it can transport oxygen to the organs make. So it comes to under-supply.
Methemoglobin: It can be fatal
If the concentration rises too high, there is even danger to life. The woman explained to the doctor, not the whole bottle. Warren of NBC News said, however, that you must have taken a whole lot.
Benzocaine is a local anesthetic, the Pain breaks forwarding. Often it comes – also in Germany – in the Form of lozenges for the throat pain or discomfort in the area of the mucous membranes of the mouth (as the mouthwash solutions, gels) or Anus for use.
The US pharmaceutical authority, the FDA has tightened 2018 your security alarm to the local anesthetic, benzocaine. Benzocaine-containing medication for the oral cavity, such as lozenges, mouthwashes or Zahnungsgele may not be used in children under two years of age. Package inserts to warn of the side effect of Methemoglobinemia.
For the young woman, everything is once again gone well. She was treated with an antidote, and after an observation period of one night in the hospital and again discharged home. Warren warned in an interview with NBC News, haunting: “The people have no idea that something very Specific and very Dangerous can happen. It is not a mild side effect. “ With the active ingredient benzocaine should be gently dealt with.
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