• snooggums@midwest.social
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    8 months ago

    When a drug expert can’t tell the difference between a stroke and drugs they aren’t much of an expert.

  • thantik@lemmy.world
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    8 months ago

    This happened to my wife, sadly. They arrested her for DUI when she was having a medical event. Even blew 0.000 on the breathylizer. We don’t drink. For some reason, her bowel medications - every time they’d start working, she’d go wonky. There’s some sort of chemical imbalance there, but doctors haven’t found out what’s going on.

      • thantik@lemmy.world
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        8 months ago

        Opposite problem. She’s got microscopic colitis and can’t stop moving bowels.

        If she takes something that manages to stop it, and return her to normal - some chemical imbalance happens and she starts getting confused easily.

        She took IMODIUM, an over the counter product. Also tried with Dicyclomine, and that sent her into a confused state too. And she’s not herself when it happens either (it hasn’t happened in a year, as we managed to isolate these particular medicines; so we know kind of what triggers it) – It’s like she’s fallen asleep, and another person has taken over. She’s lucid, but only barely when it happens. She can argue with you, but she’ll go in/out of consciousness. She’ll restart conversations over and over as she kind of ‘reboots’ constantly in this state. It’s almost narcoleptic in nature the way she’ll just be talking and insta-fall asleep, reboot, and be back awake again.

        Upon arrest they took her blood, and found no illegal substances. (she willingly gave them a sample while under arrest because she knew she hadn’t done anything wrong)

        • indomara@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          Going to chime in where I wasn’t asked here just to give you a new avenue - look up pharmacogenetic testing. It’s expensive, but one blood test and they can tell you which medications you rapidly metabolize or don’t metabolize at all - I found out a common OTC acid reflux med can make me really ill. I also rapidly metabolize certain anti depressants, which explained why I was completely out of it on 1/4 tablet. It also let me know which ones are safe. Your wife might be a rapid metabolizer of some of these meds and not even know it!

          • thantik@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            I appreciate it more than you could understand; we’ll look into it. Doctors have all told her “it is what it is, nothing we can do about it”. So finding someone else who knows a little bit about this is a huge relief. I appreciate you.

            • indomara@lemmy.world
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              8 months ago

              I don’t know exactly what your wife is sensitive to, but I had a similar reaction to drugs that shouldn’t have done a thing to me. No one in my life has ever told me about pharmacogenetic testing, the ONLY reason I ever heard about it is because my new GP used to be a pharmacist.

              I tell everyone about it now. You know all those friends who spent a year or two trialing different mental health meds to find one that worked? What if they could just get this test and immediately knock off any that they won’t react to and be forewarned about any they might be sensitive to? It’s amazing!

        • SoleInvictus@lemmy.world
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          8 months ago

          Sorry to play armchair doctor, but has she tried budesonide? I ask because a friend of mine has/had very similar symptoms. He was diagnosed with microscopic colitis but it was actually mast cell related. Doctors are still trying to figure out what mast cell disorder it is, but the leading theory is the other medication was causing his mast cells to degranulate, whereas budesonide inhibits degranulation.

          As someone who also has a mystery mast cell issue (go MCAS!), my mast cells going pop makes me really loopy, sometimes to the point of incoherence.

          • thantik@lemmy.world
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            8 months ago

            That’s one of the ones we eliminated that we thought may have been producing the reaction. We’re unwilling to even begin trying to mess with that again, as she would be a VERY big handful during these events. I don’t know if it’s an interaction between budesonide, and dicyclomine or what (or if she was even on them at the same time, or separate times, etc) - but there were a handful of medications that we had her stop, and the events stopped. None of her medications should have produced the effects that we had seen. Nevertheless, cops arrested her for DUI, instead of sending her to the emergency room. :[

    • gregorum@lemm.ee
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      8 months ago

      Especially when almost everyone’s entry into the legal system begins with an armed and armored gang of low-IQ bullies with delusions of grandeur, and are trained to see every interaction as an opportunity to humiliate, beat, imprison, and/or kill everyone and everything they encounter.

  • DrRatso@lemmy.ml
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    8 months ago

    Did she represent herself or what? How did she only end up getting 800000 (500 from PD and 300 from EMS. What I suspect, and none of the articles I looked up clarify, is that she missed the treatment window. Which means she likely ended up having permanent disability, at least in part, if not entirely due to the negligence of the Police and EMS involved.

    Strokes come in two flavours - ischemic (clot has blocked blood to some area and hemmorhagic - blood has leaked into some area of the brain (or around it)

    An ichemic stroke needs to be treated within 4 hours (there are some ways to extend this window, in some patients) of symptom onset. Within this timeframe it is possible to dissolve the clot that caused it and restore blood flow to the damaged area. As we usually say time = brain cells, the longer the delay, the more permanent damage is done, the end of the window means likely all of the involved brain cells are permanently dead.

    Some cell death occurs also in hemmorhagic stroke, because the blood flow is compromised due to the damaged blood vessel but also due to pressure the leaking blood exerts on tissues surrounding it. And it is still important to treat it promptly, delays will result in more permanent damage.

    What is also fucked is that she had reportedly memory issues and trouble speaking, there was EMS on scene, who examined her and wanted to take her to the hospital but she refused. I doubt she had capacity to refuse, she was likely disoriented and not critical of her condition, I would have taken against her against her will at this point, if unable to convince her to go on her own, stroke victims often themselves do not realise/comprehend their condition at the time.