The old woman is tired, breathing fast after 3 months of taking diabetes medicine

On the morning of April 27, Assoc. Dr. Hoang Bui Hai, Head of Emergency and Critical Care Medicine, Hanoi Medical University Hospital, said that he had just saved the life of a patient who was poisoned with a high blood sugar-lowering pill to treat diabetes.

The old lady has a history of diabetes, and she still goes to the doctor every month. However, the medicine the doctor gave her did not use, but she took a high blood sugar-lowering oriental medicine pill told by the elderly in the group going to the temple.

After 3 months of taking the medicine, I lost 8 pounds.

“One day, he was exhausted… breathing fast like a machine before his children went to the emergency room. The doctor suspected acidemia and immediately did blood gas at the emergency room. The results show that the pH index: 6.7 (a level rarely seen alive); Phenformin poisoning – an old diabetes drug, is the death of many ignorant people”, Assoc. Dr. Hoang Bui Hai informed.

Immediately, the instrument was assigned acute dialysis. Assoc. Dr. Hoang Bui Hai informed that this morning he was able to talk, pH about living standards 7.35-7.45.

The medicine that the old woman took almost died

This is not the first case of Phenformin poisoning. Previously in 2020, Saint Paul Hospital also received and treated a 56-year-old male patient who was hospitalized in a critical condition due to poisoning with the banned substance Phenformin in herbal medicine of unknown origin.

Providing information to reporters at that time, Dr. Luong Tuan Kien, Department of Intensive Care – Anti-poison, Saint Paul General Hospital said that the patient’s metabolic acidosis was caused by severe Phenformin with a high rate of mortality is more than 50%. Fortunately, the male patient arrived at the hospital in time and responded well to treatment.

Through taking the medical history, the patient has had diabetes for many years. Doctors prescribe regular treatment with insulin injections (substances that control blood sugar metabolism). In addition, the patient also has hepatitis B, liver cancer.

Almost a month before being admitted to the hospital, the patient quit treatment and switched to taking male medicine about 4 tablets a day. The pill has a yellow-brown spherical shape, about 1cm in diameter, with unknown information on ingredients, content, place of manufacture and no licensing certificate. Advertisements on the packaging say the drug is used to treat diabetes and kidney failure.

After taking it for a few days, the man saw a drop in his blood sugar, so the patient continued to take the medicine. However, after that, the patient gradually felt tired, eating poorly.

On October 25, his family took him to Saint Paul General Hospital for emergency in a state of slow consciousness, low blood pressure, rapid deep breathing, abdominal pain. Laboratory indicators are bad, with metabolic acidosis (acidemia in the blood) and severe lactic acidosis, threatening respiratory arrest, cardiac arrest.

Patients must be mechanically ventilated and use vasopressor drugs to raise blood pressure, continuously filter the blood to eliminate toxins in the body. Acidosis and multiple organ failure improve during dialysis. After 2 days, he was removed from the ventilator, removed the endotracheal tube, removed vasopressors, and stopped dialysis.

Notably, along with emergency treatment for patients, Saint Paul General Hospital also sent samples of herbal medicine provided by the family for testing. The results showed that the drug ingredients were positive for phenformin, a drug used to treat diabetes in the US since the 1950s.

Before that, in 2018, the Intensive Care Unit – Bach Mai Hospital also continuously received patients with severe complications after a period of using male drugs to treat diabetes. Two of those three patients died due to the helplessness of the doctors and their families.

All 3 patients were admitted to the hospital with a similar situation: abdominal pain accompanied by chest pain resembling an acute myocardial infarction, shock, rapid multi-organ failure, high blood lactic acid test.

All 3 patients had a history of diabetes for many years but did not receive treatment with western medicine but self-treated with “diabetes completely” tablets of unknown origin, without labels, sold online, ” ship” goods to your home. All three patients had the same diagnosis: Metabolic acidosis due to phenformin poisoning/Type 2 diabetes.

TS.BS Nguyen Quang Bay – Head of the Department of Diabetes Endocrinology said: phenformin is an active ingredient that helps lower blood sugar but causes many side effects and unpredictable complications, so it has been banned worldwide since 5 years. 1978.

Taking advantage of people’s ignorance, they mixed and impersonated traditional medicine to sell to the market.

Dr. Dr. Quang Bay also emphasized that diabetes is a chronic disease that can be controlled and minimized its complications if the patient is adhered to a course of treatment, continuous monitoring, correct, coordinated treatment. with a reasonable diet and appropriate exercise as prescribed by the doctor.

“Many people often tinker with treatment methods with “traditional medicine”, or folk experience, leading to dangerous and unfortunate complications like the cases of patients above”, Dr. Seven said.

Therefore, in order to prevent unfortunate complications that can lead to death, doctors recommend that diabetics should not arbitrarily use male drugs of unknown origin, origin, and ingredients, because Maybe the drug has been mixed with banned substances, which are harmful to the body.

Patients should absolutely follow the treatment instructions of the doctor and be persistent with the regimen to achieve the best treatment effect.

Especially, with the family members of people with diabetes, Assoc. Dr. Hoang Bui Hai warned: “Currently, there are some people who take advantage of their gullibility, so they take advantage of old people’s retirement money with the trick of delivering fat and sick tonics at home. Children and grandchildren do not believe that the elderly go to the doctor and take the medicine prescribed by the doctor.

N. Huyen