Christmas came early! 🎄 The @PoisonCenters 2023 Annual Report is here! 📊 It captures U.S. poisoning & overdose data and highlights emerging trends.
🔗 (Free copy at end of the 🧵)
This year’s trend? Unregulated psychoactive substances. #MedEd #FOAMed shorturl.at/23n3l
⚠️ Unregulated Psychotropics
Phenibut, tianeptine, kratom, & nitrous oxide = growing public health risks.
🛒 Sold in gas stations, vape shops, & supplement stores as “nootropics” or enhancers.
💡 Awareness is crucial—here I am w/ some gas station kratom! 🌿
🤔 What are these substances?
🌿 #Kratom: Hit U.S. in 2010s. Plant extract w/ opioid effects (mitragynine) for mood, pain relief, & opioid withdrawal.
💊 #Phenibut: ~2015 arrival. Baclofen analog, GABA-B agonist ➡️ CNS depression/euphoria, used for anxiety, insomnia, & more.
You're working in the ED when a 30 y.o male presents 30 minutes after envenomation to the right index finger by his pet snake (left).
He has a picture of culprit (right) , and it is definitely NOT from America.
A 🧵on U.S. exotic envenomation management.
(shared with consent)
This involved a Blue Indonesian pit viper (Trimereserus Insularis) but this could have been any exotic snake. There have been 50-110 exotic snake bites reported to Poison Centers annually since 2012.
Exotic venomous animals are found in several environments within the U.S. including zoos, homes of reptile enthusiasts, laboratories of venom milking industries, and in illegal venomous reptile trafficking rings. In this case, it was a pet of a reptile hobbyist.
If you do have a good sample or photo you can work with a mycologist (your posion center knows one) to identify the shroom. But this is not frequent.
Since we almost never have that we usually rely on history and symptoms
Key to differentiating mushroom toxicity types: time to onset of GI issues. Most mushrooms upset the tummy. The 5hr “rule” helps identify bad ones.
This year we highlighted two important trends in addition to baseline poisoning data.
Firstly, THC product exposures have been increasing since 2016, and the demographics are changing. In 2021, edible products (red line) eclipsed plant based marijuana (blue line) for products
The change in products also represents changing demographics. While Adults (gold) comprise the majority of exposures, pediatric<6 (green) is taking an ever increasing share of the THC exposure calls since 2016.
Like this one, where a law enforcement officer had CONFIRMED methamphetamine/fentanyl blown all over them, rubbed sanitizer on it (don't do that), felt dizzy, had hypertension, were alert, breathing normally. No Opioid effects. Back to normal in a few hrs. cdc.gov/niosh/hhe/repo…