Seizures and cardiovascular collapse in a patient at the emergency department

doi:N/A

eISSN: None / ISSN: None

Netharland Journal of Critical Care

2016, Volume 24, Issue 3 : 26-28

Article

Seizures and cardiovascular collapse in a patient at the emergency department

de Lange S.

Wong Loi Sing M.J.

Croes B.

Abstract

We describe an unknown patient who was left behind at the emergency department with seizures, hypotension, and bradycardia caused by cocaine intoxication due to rupture of one of the packages he was smuggling inside his stomach. He was diagnosed with severe cocaine intoxication, admitted to the ICU and almost all the packages were removed from his stomach by gastronomy. A few days later he was discharged from hospital. High blood levels of cocaine can produce the opposite clinical features to what you would expect in a patient who took cocaine, due to blockage of the sodium channels in the cardiac myocytes. © 2016, Netherlands Society of Intensive Care. All right reserved.

Keywords

Cardiovascular collapse

Cocaine intoxication

Na+ channel blockade

Seizures

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