Poisoning
The prognosis is good for paracetamol overdoses if treatment is initiated up to 8 hours after the drug has been taken. Most hospitals stock the antidote (acetylcysteine), which replenishes the liver's supply of glutathione, allowing the NAPQI to be metabolized safely. However, what often happens is that suicidal individuals, recognizing they are still alive hours later, assume that the suicide attempt was a failure and give it little thought. After the initial overdose, there may be a period where they feel relatively normal, but have no knowledge that their liver is in the process of being destroyed. Symptoms of liver failure typically appear 16–36 hours after the initial overdose, and, by this time, nothing short of a liver transplant can be done to save their life. Without early administration of the antidote, fulminant liver failure follows, often in combination with kidney failure, and death generally occurs within several days.
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Famous quotes containing the word poisoning:
“The most winning woman I ever knew was hanged for poisoning three little children for their insurance-money, and the most repellent man of my acquaintance is a philanthropist who has spent nearly a quarter of a million upon the London poor.”
—Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930)
“It is beyond a doubt that during the sixteenth century, and the years immediately preceding and following it, poisoning had been brought to a pitch of perfection which remains unknown to modern chemistry, but which is indisputably proved by history. Italy, the cradle of modern science, was at that time, the inventor and mistress of these secrets, many of which are lost.”
—Honoré De Balzac (1799–1850)