Just the other day, we told you a story about how an 81-year-old wholesome food lover overdid it on healthy food intake so much that he almost lost his kidneys. Judging by the statistics, this news has interested many of our readers - do you want something else like that? Fortunately, there are a lot of similar medical stories, and one of them happened quite recently in the American state of Rhode Island. A 25-year-old girl came to a local hospital with complaints of weakness, breathing problems and a bluish skin tone. During the tests, it turned out that her blood turned dark blue.
The girl was examined by a doctor named Otis Warren. Fortunately, he had vast experience and had already seen patients with blue blood. Suspecting that oxygen starvation was the cause of the girl's blue skin, nails and blood, the doctor decided to measure the saturation of her blood with oxygen. His instinct did not disappoint him - while the oxygen saturation in a healthy person is 97-100%, in the patient this figure was 67%.
Causes of blue blood
Dr. Warren diagnosed the girl with methemoglobinemia. The cause of this rare disease is a change in the form of iron - this trace element ceases to provide oxygen to the tissues, which leads to oxygen starvation. From his medical experience, the doctor recalled that overuse of certain medications, such as pain relievers and antibiotics, can be the cause of this disease.
The blue blood of a 24 year old girl.
And in this case, he was right. It turned out that the day before the girl had a severe toothache and before going to bed she took a large dose of anesthetic containing a local anesthetic benzocaine. It was he who caused the oxygen starvation, and overnight, the patient's oxygen-rich, bright red blood turned blue.
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The consequences of oxygen starvation
If the girl did not go to the hospital on time, the consequences could be extremely sad. The fact is that with oxygen starvation, a person can experience irreparable brain damage, the end result of which is death. Fortunately, the experienced doctor knew what to do and injected the girl with a substance called methylene blue. He restored the work of the most important element of blood, hemoglobin, which has the property of capturing oxygen and delivering them to organs. After spending the night in the hospital, the girl began to feel better and was allowed to go home.
This story can be considered a great reminder that medications must be handled with extreme care. It is always worth remembering that even popular antibiotics, which are often prescribed by attending physicians, can be dangerous to human health. For example, are you aware of the dangers of oxolinic acid, which is commonly prescribed for urinary tract infections? Scientists recently discovered that many people develop cardiovascular diseases due to the use of this antibiotic.
Ramis Ganiev