Palytoxin Poisoning - A tale of the need to use extreme caution

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Palytoxin Poisoning - A tale of the need to use extreme caution

Post by snoopdog »

I contemplated even posting this because hindsight it could had been avoided, be gentle because I am still very sick. Yesterday after mowing the lawn I was looking at my back porch thinking yeah those palythoa plugs have been out here a month now in the hot southern sun, they are done for and i need to clean them up and use those plugs. I put them in a vinegar mix by my laundry room, left for a few hours since it was Mother's day Sunday. My GF was three rooms away working and the rest of use were just around the house here and there. This house is two story, high ceilings. Roughly 6 hours later after eating I did not feel well and thought my reflux has never been this bad so I laid down in the bed, one room away from those palythoa in a bucket. After waking up it was even worse, I took two more gaviscon thinking what the heck, my chest now hurts. I started cleaning the tank glass, never finished as I noticed people were all starting to cough in the house. I mention to the GF that my reflux is kicking my butt and she said she had a strange taste in her mouth and did not feel well. She mentioned she thought that vinegar was an issue as the plugs where in a vinegar water bath, I had a moment where I am like OMG, what have I done. I ran back into the house since we were on the porch and looked in the bucket and those palys were rehydrated, they even looked like palys but clear. While outside the house I was not feeling better so after thinking about it and not wanting to go to the hospital, I thought it could be a mistake not going just then we packed up and left. An ambulance ride would be worse.

On the ride up my symptoms were a cough, pain in the chest, shaking weak arms, slight confusion, elevated heart rate. During triage and an explanation, we got plenty of looks like we were aliens. I explained to the gentleman the best I could while he called poison control, even they were like what? Seriously? They took me for an X-Ray and that girl was like what? Then they took me for an EKG, they were like huh? I was given zofram(sp), dilaudid and a steroid. Then shortly after I was rushed for a CT, followed by blood draw. The doctor had no clue but was reading very quickly and seemed to be taking it was more serious after he read. Hours of waiting started in on uncontrollable shaking like I was in a meat locker, it came in waves but at the peak I had the entire bed shaking, I took videos of that. The doctor listened to my lungs many times and said I was the worst because of the wheezing noise in my lungs, bronchial spasms. At that point I did not care because the dilaudid was in full swing. My son was next to me, he started puking in the sink and filled it up to the point it was clogged. GF was in the next room with the younger son, he also threw up on the floor.

So the GF and I were texting back and forth so I knew their symptoms were getting worse and we bit the bullet and admitted all of us, we can make money to pay copays, replacing people is hard. I think we were in the emergency room for maybe 5-6 hours but the day is still foggy to me, I am still making typing errors so still not even close to feeling like myself. This morning my throat is still sore, my head is still hurting but my heart rate is down from a sitting 100 of last night to 80-90 depending on the minute, still way too high for my body. When we got back home last night I expected the cat to be fine, I had opened the windows and I thought cats were more tolerant of things like this, but I was very wrong. I think long term she will be fine but currently she does not look good. We have been talking with vets this morning to see what we can do for her.
"When they was no meat we ate fowl, when there was no fowl we ate crawdad. And when there was no crawdad to be found, we ate sand."--Cellmate
"You ate what?"--H.I.
"We ate sand."--Cellmate
"You ate sand?"--H.I.
"That's right."--Cellmate
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