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Lucis
Nutritional Yeast

Registered: 03/28/15
Posts: 15,622
Last seen: 1 month, 28 days
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Weird News, sort of...
#28275286 - 04/13/23 01:59 AM (9 months, 11 days ago) |
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Source
Woman Injects Crushed Black Widow To Get High, Has A Bad Time Journeying to the ICU probably wasn't the trip she had in mind.
RACHAEL FUNNELL
A woman who crushed up a whole black widow spider and injected it in an effort to get high in the 1990s ended up having a very bad time when the arachnid’s venom kicked in. The unpleasant trip saw her spend a few days in the intensive care unit (ICU) with breathing difficulties, muscle cramping, and possible anaphylaxis.
The unusual case is reported in a 1996 correspondence in the Annals of Emergency Medicine, detailing the events following a 37-year-old woman’s decision to inject a mixture of crushed-up whole black widow spider and 10 milliliters of distilled water. She would later tell doctors that the injection was intended to get her high, but instead, she ended up at the emergency department with severe muscle cramps an hour later.
The cramping was the worst in her abdomen, thighs, and back and came with an unsettling side order of headaches and anxiety. Upon examination, her heart rate and blood pressure were sky-rocketing at 188 beats per minute and 188/108 mm Hg respectively (a healthy blood pressure is around 120/80 mm Hg).
Her extreme pain was treated with morphine but she soon began experiencing breathing difficulties and was subsequently admitted to the ICU, requiring several treatments to help her breathe across a few days. The corresponding doctors report that bronchial smooth muscle contraction was in part to blame for her breathing difficulty, possibly brought on by the large quantities of black widow venom that would’ve entered her system when she injected the crushed-up arachnid.
Black widow venom is 15 times more powerful than that of a rattlesnake making it very dangerous, but these spiders only envenomate when threatened (which raises questions about all the penis bites). They are perfectly safe if left well alone, but if you grind one up and inject it, evidently, you’re going to have a bad time.
Most healthy adults will feel unwell and experience some pain but eventually recover, like this trio of aspiring spider-men who tried to gain superpowers by goading a black widow into biting them. However, for young children, the elderly, or people with pre-existing conditions, the bite can sometimes prove fatal.
Doctors treating the woman who injected the crushed-up back widow concoction also theorized that a protein within the spider’s anatomy may have triggered an allergic reaction that could explain some of her severe symptoms. Whether it was the venom or something else isn’t known, but it may have triggered her pre-existing asthma, leading to considerable difficulty breathing.
Fortunately, the traumatic event had a happy ending as the woman recovered from her symptoms and was reportedly in good health during a check-up one month on. While humans have a rich history of seeking nirvana from natural products (even our primate relatives spin to get a buzz), it seems that venomous-arachnid-infusions are a bad way to go.
The case report is published in the Annals of Emergency Medicine.
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cricket
Lord Cricket


Registered: 08/29/03
Posts: 960
Loc: in my house, in front of ...
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Re: Weird News, sort of... [Re: Lucis]
#28275425 - 04/13/23 05:55 AM (9 months, 11 days ago) |
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I remember, back in the 80s a bunch of dumb asses smoking banana peels trying to get high. I've even heard of people "smoking" cobra venom.
Injecting venom and expecting anything other then "Toxic envenomation"!?!?
May saint Darwin bless her soul.
-------------------- I tried to leave my signature but it didn't work... By the way... Does anybody know how to get sharpie markers off of a computer screen?
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VP123
Strange



Registered: 06/27/19
Posts: 1,341
Loc: Midwest
Last seen: 9 days, 21 hours
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Re: Weird News, sort of... [Re: Lucis]
#28275504 - 04/13/23 07:20 AM (9 months, 11 days ago) |
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This happened almost 30 years ago. I wonder why is it considered news.
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durian_2008
Cornucopian Eating an Elephant



Registered: 04/02/08
Posts: 16,685
Loc: Raccoon City
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Re: Weird News, sort of... [Re: VP123]
#28275597 - 04/13/23 08:43 AM (9 months, 11 days ago) |
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durian_2008
Cornucopian Eating an Elephant



Registered: 04/02/08
Posts: 16,685
Loc: Raccoon City
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Quote:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redback_spider
The redback spider (Latrodectus hasselti), also known as the Australian black widow
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durian_2008
Cornucopian Eating an Elephant



Registered: 04/02/08
Posts: 16,685
Loc: Raccoon City
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Comes from the same family as the American Western Widow and looks very much the same.
Edited by durian_2008 (04/13/23 09:48 AM)
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TheShroomanizer
Stranger-Danger


Registered: 06/12/09
Posts: 1,571
Loc: The Swamp
Last seen: 9 months, 9 hours
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They also found a marijuana plant....lol
Thought that was kinda funny at the end of the article.
Man...if I was going to go through all that trouble...I would just train a hive of bumblebees to wallow around on weed buds, then just smoke the dried bees. Duhhhhh.
(Don’t do that please)
-------------------- Trading Prints -Nature gave us one tongue and two ears so we could listen twice as much as we speak-
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durian_2008
Cornucopian Eating an Elephant



Registered: 04/02/08
Posts: 16,685
Loc: Raccoon City
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Quote:
TheShroomanizer said: They also found a marijuana plant....lol
Quote:
(which raises questions about all the penis bites)
A heavily protected plant.
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