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Hey, dr bernard here. this is medicine. there’s a label on the bottle, required by law, that tells you how to take it. cooking food in it, is not how you take it. you can cause massive, irreversible also, the nyquil chicken meme isn’t new. someone sent this to me on twitter, july 12, 2020. if you search, the exact
Image was making its so, the fda consumer update about social media challenges involving medicines, mentioning nyquil chicken september 15, 2022, i’m guessing, that particular image, and wrote it in to the update sometime in between these 2 years. i don’t believe they went out of their way to report
This specific trend, it was just an example that they cited. then the media picked up on it, and the idea was presented as new and amplified by orders of magnitude. this wasn’t an ultra viral trend before the news stories dropped, so because of that, i don’t know of any specific cases of nyquil chicken poisonings
Leading to a hospital admission, at the time of recording this. however, the ingredients in here are used by at least 60 million americans every week. it’s safe when used per label, but sometimes mistakes happen, and we do have tens of thousands of cases of those poisonings involving these medicines every year.
So in an effort to make it so there aren’t any specific cases of nighttime cold and flu medicine chicken going forward, i will tell you about what an actual poisoning of this looks like, by using the a man cooked chicken in nighttime cold and flu op is a 19 year old man, presenting to the emergency room, unconscious.
His mother lana, tells the admitting nurse that her son had suffered at least 2 seizures before of his eyes were a greenish yellow color. at least the last 48 hours, because he had locked himself in his room before she broke in op was someone who liked memes. every day, first thing in the morning, he’d reach for his
Phone to that their son had a problem. sometimes, they’d see him sitting alone in a room, silent and staring off into space, when suddenly they’d hear him cackling maniacally because he remembered a random meme he posted online 2 years ago. he’d spend hours everyday just scrolling, and the funnier he
Found a post, the more his face one day, op came across chicken cooked in night time cold and flu medicine. he saw the rich turquoise greenish color of the meat outside, and the partially cooked inside. chicken pink raw, in the kitchen now, op whipped out and he poured at least 2 bottles of night time cold and flu
Medicine. he made sure to record it all so he could meme the video. but as the chicken was starting to cook in the medicine, he felt the smoke waft up into his nose, and a stinging pain started piercing into his eyes. it must be ready to eat now, he thought, as he in the minutes after finishing his meal, op thought
He felt his vision starting to slow down. he could hear a bell ringing in his ears, like he was sitting at a funeral. time to play as the hours passed, op kept thinking that he was seeing lights flashing and hearing sounds opening the door and slurring out as the door slammed shut. op wasn’t sure if he dreamed
That, because the next thing floor with a mouth as dry as the desert, only getting up because he had to scramble to the as the day continued, op kept feeling worse. every time he emptied his stomach, greenish yellow color, the same color as his skin and the whites of his eyes. he wasn’t sure if he couldn’t
Think correctly anymore because he was wondering if what was being pushed into the toilet from his stomach was actually parts the ground. his breathing starts to become labored, and as his stomach starts to hurt more and more, he can feel his head start pounding. he can feel his eyes push out of his skull, as
As at least 36 hours pass, op starts to convulse. in the other room, lana had no idea where her son she calls for 911 and he’s brought to the emergency room where we are now. at examination, doctors immediately see several clues telling them what’s happening. first, op is jaundiced. this yellowing of his skin and eyes is
From a chemical called bilirubin, something produced from breaking down red blood cells in the liver. if there’s so much bilirubin floating around in the body that it’s attaching to his skin and his eyes, then it means that something must be wrong with his liver, and a blood test finds confirms this because parts of
His liver have died, and are leaking their contents around in the same blood test reports that his kidneys have also shut down, all of this giving doctors nighttime cold and flu medicine is typically a mix of 3 active ingredients. dextromethorphan, is used as the sleep aid giving the way to the acetaminophen,
Also known as paracetamol, which is a pain reliever and an anti-inflammatory medicine meaning it can help with the aches and fevers associated with flu. these 3 medicines as doctors move op into the intensive care unit, they stick a tube down his throat so that a machine can help breathe for him. clearly if he
Presented to the emergency room in a coma, dextromethorphan, can cause hallucinations and psychoactive effects. in very large amounts, much of a chemical that sends signals in the brain can cause problems. op thought he could see and hear things, and he might have been able to, this particular formulation, is much
Less been enough to cause some hallucinations, have the signs and symptoms of that, and so, but how about the ingredient that increases branded as nighttime medicine. if it makes one sleepy, then it should affect the brain right? well, it could. but doxylamine isn’t just a medicine for drowsiness. it’s also an
Allergy medicine, it works similar to how benadryl does, so op could have had hallucinations from this too. but the very high. it could explain his dry mouth and his blurred vision, but it shouldn’t cause liver all of this leaves us with the final active ingredient, acetaminophen. at the doses indicated
On any medicine label, acetaminophen is safe. however, acetaminophen happens to be in many different over the counter medicines, and while people may follow the directions on the label of one medicine, they could be taking another medicine, following that label too. this means that the person following these labels
Correctly, are unknowingly doubling or tripling their daily acetaminophen intake. even worse, they might also be taking prescription medicine, like hydrocodone for pain, and that also contains acetaminophen. the active ingredients tell you most of what you the same active ingredient here. this means that
Following the label exactly on both bottles could still net you an overdose if that person isn’t paying attention to what they’re putting op consumed at least 2 bottles of nighttime cold and flu medicine when he cooked his chicken in it, if you take acetaminophen for aches and pains and fever, you’ll likely take it in
Tablet or capsule form. in the stomach, it takes time for these to dissolve, before they pass through and absorb into the blood stream through the small intestines. liquid medicines don’t need to dissolve, they’re in a form ready to be absorbed into the blood, meaning that op’s poisoning was happening
Much quicker. when it absorbs into his blood from this brings us to an idea called metabolism. the substances that some folks use and abuse, or it’s put into a nasal or mucous membrane, or it’s injected. if you look at how the blood of administration get the substances to the brain, significant, because the liver
Metabolizes, body. when you ingest medicine by mouth, half, if not more of the dose you took, is metabolized in the liver first, inactivating the medicine in an effort to protect your body from something that’s 1) not made in your body and 2) shouldn’t be in excess in your body. smoke and injection
Bypass reaching the liver first, so that a higher amount can get to the target organ. all as the nighttime cold and flu medicine absorbs into his liver, all the acetaminophen starts to get processed. the interesting thing about the liver, is that it uses multiple ways to metabolize any given substance. these different
Pathways make the liver more robust in the case that should one pathway be overwhelmed for some reason, a different one can step in to continue the process. this is what happens to acetaminophen. but in as more and more acetaminophen floods into op’s liver, the first non-toxic metabolite isn’t made as much. the
Liver moves on to the second pathway, breaking acetaminophen into a reactive chemical. because it’s robust, the liver is still fine with this, it has stores of a chemical named glutathione that can neutralize this reactive chemical. but because op consumed so much acetaminophen, more and more reactive metabolite
Keeps accumulating, and the liver starts to run out of glutathione, and there’s when chemicals are reactive, they want to become more stable. in the body, you typically don’t want they’ll try to stabilize themselves by taking bits and pieces from parts of the body. and in op’s case, the toxic acetaminophen metabolite
Is reacting with his liver. at first, it interferes with the mitochondria, making it harder for cells to produce energy. but then it starts ripping off parts of cells in an effort to stabilize itself. as the cells start to die because they’re reacting with the metabolite, the liver starts to lose its capacity
To process the body’s waste, becoming as the days continue, op’s blood starts showing that these dead parts of his liver are floating metabolite floods his liver, killing even more cells, as the liver shuts down and waste continues to build up his body. bacteria and cells in the gut produce ammonia, which in normal
Function is processed by the liver. it’s converted to glutamine. as op’s liver keeps necrosing from the massive ingestion of acetaminophen, the ammonia spills into his blood causing hyperammonemia. hyper meaning high. ammon referring to ammonia, a substance produced by the normal breakdown of the brain tries to
Compensate for this presence in blood because brain cells have some ability to metabolize ammonia to glutamine, just like the liver can. but as the massive amount of imbalance starts to happen as the brain starts to swell. at first, the skull has a little room for the brain to expand, but as the liver quickly
Becomes unable to handle anything because it has completely shut down, more and more ammonia spills in causing the brain to swell even more. all of the survival mechanisms in the brain cells become overwhelmed suddenly, as the brain starts to crush up against the sides of the skull, smashing blood vessels and causing
The brain to ooze through the is there anything that can be done for op? well, maybe. time is the most important toxic, but there isn’t currently a way to liver can handle the toxic metabolite with is to replenish the stores of glutathione. it does just that, and prevents the toxic permanent damage is
Extensive in the liver, and a liver transplant would be the only remaining solution. because op had neurologic in the fda consumer update, it says boiling a medication can make it much more concentrated. won’t create more of the active ingredient, but it will take some liquid out. more concerning is the idea
Of stability. heating something up means the molecules move faster. this increased kinetic energy can make everything less stable, and you won’t know exactly what you’re case is, don’t cook anything with any op was not able to get a liver transplant in time, and he was not able to make a recovery. his case was
From an intentional massive acetaminophen ingestion, no idea what product specifically it was, because like i said earlier, acetaminophen is included in so many common over the counter and prescription medicines that 60 million americans consume it weekly. at doses on the label, and if you have no prior health conditions,
And you’re only just taking this one medicine, our bodies have enough glutathione to handle the metabolite. it does take a lot of this to cause damage like in op’s case, but if you accidentally combine too many medicines like how an elderly person in the retirement home might, or you think it’s a funny meme
To mess around with whole bottles like this, thanks for watching. take care of yourself. and be well.
Transcribed from video
A Man Cooked Chicken In Nighttime Flu Medicine. This Is What Happened To His Liver. By Chubbyemu