Feeling pain in her bones and joints, the 78-year-old woman ordered water chestnuts online and boiled them to drink, leading to cardiogenic shock and death.
On October 27, a representative of the National Hospital of Tropical Diseases said that the patient was admitted to the hospital in a state of exhaustion, cold skin, completely irregular pulse, and blood pressure dropped to 50/30 mmHg – a sign of cardiogenic shock due to severe arrhythmia.
According to family members, the patient has a history of long-term joint pain and used this herb 20 years ago, after which the pain improved. Recently, due to recurring pain, she ordered sea cucumber tubers online – goods sent from the highlands, with the purpose of making a drink to treat her joints. Although instructed to only use 1-2 tubers/week, patients arbitrarily boil 5 tubers at a time to drink. 30 minutes later, she was dizzy, vomited, had low blood pressure, and had arrhythmia.
Doctors diagnosed cardiogenic shock, with a risk of death. The team actively resuscitated with anti-shock fluids, anti-arrhythmic drugs, and placed monitors for continuous monitoring. At the same time, the patient was given gastric lavage, activated charcoal, and closely monitored for signs of nervous and cardiovascular toxicity.
Doctor Ninh Thi Ngoc, Emergency Department, said that the main toxin in sea urchin root is aconitin – an extremely toxic alkaloid that can cause heart conduction disorders, slow heart rate, ventricular extrasystoles, convulsions, loss of consciousness, and rapid death. This is a case of poisoning due to an overdose of guava root, but luckily he was taken to the hospital early and treated according to the correct protocol so he survived the critical situation.
After 3 hours of intensive treatment, the patient’s condition stabilized, the old lady was alert and had good contact. However, aconitin toxin has the ability to cause long-term effects on cardiac conduction, so monitoring is required for at least 2-3 days.
The patient uses water chestnut root. Image: Doctor provided
Cau Tau tubers also have other names such as Au Tau, O Dau, Phu Tu – often grow in the high mountains of the North and mountainous provinces of China. In Oriental medicine, this medicine is only used after careful processing (bu tu processing) in very small doses for massage or controlled outpatient treatment. On the contrary, fresh and raw tubers (as used by the patient) contain very high levels of toxins – only about 2 mg of aconitin can cause cardiac arrhythmia and 5 mg can cause death, equivalent to just a few small tubers.
Doctors recommend absolutely not arbitrarily buying, decocting, or soaking in wine au tau roots or any highly toxic herbs if they have not been properly prepared. People should not believe word-of-mouth instructions or online information about “au tau root to treat joint pain”, because many products for sale are of unknown origin, have not been tested for quality, and pose a potential risk of poisoning.
When unusual symptoms such as dizziness, nausea, lip numbness, arrhythmia or low blood pressure appear, you should immediately go to the nearest medical facility for timely treatment.