Sickfic and H/C Writers' Workshop

Really high doses of muscarine- a poison found in some mushrooms- could kill in about 7-10 hours. Generally it starts feeling like you have food poisoning (vomiting, darrhea, headache, abdominal pain, sweating), then about the 3 hour mark your blood pressure and heart rate go way down and you get respiratory distress and become comatose.

Yes, it would be possible- if the person was lucky. If the bone was not displaced (or displaced only slightly) at the fracture site and there was someone vaguely trained in wilderness first aid to help them.

Am I remembering this incorrectly? I mean, can my average character produce enough lactase to eat a metric ton of ice cream in one sitting? I imagine they would have some amount of gastric distress from reflux alone... but what about lactase?

(I realize this question is all kinds of jumbled. I hope you understand what I'm asking. 😭)

So first I would say it is unlikely that throwing up after doing the milk challenge had anything to do with lactase.

Lactase is expressed in the small intestine, not the stomach, which means that the main effect of consuming lactose with inadequate lactase would be gas and diarrhea, not vomiting. The vomiting was because of the volume and fat/protein content of the milk, not the lactose.

About 70% of adults do not produce enough lactase to consume normal dairy comfortably. HOWEVER, we have another way of consuming delicious lactose- bacteria in our colon.

Colonic gut bacteria can also break down lactose. While the amount of lactase we produce remains consistent no matter what, the amounts of these lactose-consuming bacteria change with the amount of lactose we consistently eat. This means we can functionally "train" for lactose consumption by eating progressively more of it over time.

Ooh, really good question, anon.

The answer is... potentially.

In order to explain why, we have to talk a little about what hearts sound like to the people who are trained to listen to them.

A healthy heart has 2 sounds per beat- Lub and Dub, also called S1 and S2. You can hear this in your own heart or a friend's if you have a stethoscope (or just an ear you can press against a friend) and listen at one of these locations:

You'll hear a heart that probably sounds like Lub-Dub Lub-Dub Lub-Dub, etc... The Lubs are S1 and the Dubs are S2. One Lub-Dub (S1-S2) cycle is a single heart beat.

But there are other sounds that can be heard if someone has a problem with their heart. For example, if one of the heart's 4 valves has a leak in it, you might hear a "Shhh" sound somewhere between or around the Lub and Dub. Like Lub-Shhh-Dub or Lub-Dub-Shhh. Depending on which part of the chest the "Shhh" sound is audible, you can tell which valve is faulty.

You might also hear an S3 or S4 sound. S3 and S4 are "extra" sounds that occur during the heart cycle. An S3 sound is like a "Uhh" and happens at the end of the Dub (Lub-Dub-Uhh). An S4 sound sounds like a "Buh" and weirdly enough happens before the Lub (Buh-Lub-Dub).

For the purpose of your question what we really want to focus on is that S4 sound. This is a sound that almost universally occurs in the early stages (first 1-3 days) of a heart attack.

See, the S4 sound is the sound of the top of the heart (atrium) straining as it tries to push blood into a damaged, overgrown, or swollen lower part of the heart (ventricle). Since heart attacks cause damage to the ventricle(s), you get this sound pretty soon after the damage starts occurring. You can even tell where the damage is in the heart (left or right) by where on the chest you hear the S4 most clearly.

But since heart attacks are not the only reason for damage to the ventricle, hearing an S4 sound does necessarily mean that a heart attack is currently occurring. It could have been that the person has had a heart attack in the past and they have scarring on their ventricle(s). It could also mean that they have had high blood pressure for a long time and their left ventricle is bigger and stiffer than it is supposed to be. It could be that they have heart failure and there is more pressure in their ventricles than there should be. It could be that they had an infection in their heart that left scarring in the past. It could be a problem they were born with.

Since these are all chronic problems, what your character would have to notice is a sudden start of an S4, probably combined with other symptoms. When the S4 sound starts, these symptoms might not be the "classic" heart attack symptoms yet. They might be feeling "off" or more out of breath than usual, or more tired than usual, or they might have some mild nausea or indigestion.

Probably not.

As you can see in this table, even at 10F (-12C) it takes well over 2 hours no matter how much wind there is to get even some frostbite, so mildly freezing temperatures probably wouldn't cut it.

This was a real recommendation in the mid-1900s, but it has been found to not work very well and probably do more harm than good.

It does not seem like sucking the venom out of a wound is particularly helpful. Or at least, not helpful enough to negate the risks associated with making a wound (most references that talk about sucking venom out of the wound also want you to cut across the wound) and then exposing the caregiver to blood against mucous membranes, which could transmit blood borne infections.

It would depend on the hospital's policy, but most hospitals have gone back to 24/7 visitation where I am so I'd say, especially for a kid, that would most likely be allowed.

We've checked and unfortunately that's not the issue. We're working to resolve it as quickly as possible, and have reached out to the misplaced poster.

Apparently! I woke up and was extremely confused by my dash for a minute haha. Fixed now. Appreciate your concern.

Unconsciousness is an umbrella term for a state in which someone is not aware of their surroundings and is unable to respond to stimuli, such as talking or pain. There are different types of unconsciousness that fall under that umbrella.

The Glasgow Coma Scale is what medical professionals use to measure consciousness. It has 3 parts:

The number next to the response indicates the number of points someone gets for each category. For example, someone who opens their eyes to someone talking to them (3 points), can talk but is confused (4 points), and can obey commands like "squeeze my hand" (6 points) would score a 13.

To be considered unconscious, someone has to score 8 or less.

this time around i want to ask about this: in movies, sometimes a character would be knocked unconscious by getting a part of their neck pinched. what part is it? the carotid artery or some nerve? im asking because something like that happens in my wip and i wanted it to be more accurate

Unfortunately, the Vulcan Nerve Pinch is not a real thing.

It was made up by Leonard Nimoy in 1968 because Spock needed a better way of knocking Kirk out than hitting him over the head with a phaser (one might ask, if he had the phaser, could he not just...). It was then repeated in a lot of other media because it was cool.

Anyway, the closest IRL thing to the VNP is to hit someone really hard in the carotid sinus. This is the spot where the carotid artery splits into two. It contains receptors called baroreceptors, which monitor blood pressure. Hitting baroreceptors really hard in some people will falsely make the body believe that blood pressure is too high and drastically lower blood pressure momentarily, causing dizziness or unconsciousness. This will not last very long (like, in the realm of seconds).

Here's a pic if you want one:

- Blue, green, black, red, etc aren't good indicators of a bruise's age. These colors may all show up for various chemical reasons throughout the healing process. However combined with other observations such as tenderness (the area is painful to touch) they might be of some use.

- The exception is bright yellow, which only shows up when the hemoglobin starts to degrade, producing bilirubin. This may be masked by other colors in the bruise or by darker skin.

- It's not well known when bruises start turning yellow. Some studies have observed as early as 18 hours but on average about 48-72 hours.

- Some factors that might affect the appearance of a bruise include: type of object (fast objects bruise more than slow, squared edges bruise more than rounded edges), location (bony areas such as the face bruise more than the abdomen), age of the victim (most observations on how bruises heal have been done on adults and not children), blood clotting disorders, certain vitamin deficiencies, specific medications, history of injury (repeated bruises in the same location heal faster)

- Recently there have been efforts to use alternative light sources such as UV to detect bruises that might not be visible yet. This has been a really big deal for medical professionals who work with victims of violent crimes

I had to look at this article recently for a work task so I am happy to share!