Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Dinner 2

You visit the Polynesian islands, enjoying the tropics and subtropics. You catch the fish above and cook it for dinner. Three to six hours after eating the fish, you start having vomiting, diarrhea, and abdominal cramps. Three to 72 hours later, you feel paresthesias, painful teeth, painful urination, blurred vision, nerve palsies, and hot/cold temperature reversal. You take your pulse, 50, and your blood pressure, 105/60. The neurologic symptoms last for days to weeks. Your vacation, unfortunately, is ruined. The toxin is shown below:
Challenge: What's your diagnosis?

Both images are in the public domain.

3 comments:

sid said...

ciguatera??

Mackerel??

tree said...

ciguatera

Craig said...

nicely identified!
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Dinner 2

Ciguatera is associated with reef-dwelling tropical fish (barracuda, moray eel, amberjack, grouper, mackerel, parrotfish, red snapper). The Great Barracuda is shown in the image. The ciguatoxin is formed by organisms living on coral reefs and concentrated in larger fish.

Sources: UpToDate; Wikipedia.