LVREEFER
New Member
Alright been doing reefs for 8yrs; fragging for 4ish and never had a problem until now. Tuesday I notice some zoas not opening so I did a dip with hydrogen peroxide and found a couple of things so I decided to dip the rest and put them all back in my quarantine tank. Wednesday night I got a call from my boss no work on Thursday so I woke up 6:30-7:00am and started dipping. Dipped two batches and made a new dipping solution and dipped two more batches and was placing them all in the quarantine tank. I finished the whole operation around 10:00am. At about 1:30 I starting getting some weird feelings. I was achy all over my body and increasingly tired like I was getting the flu then I started coughing and had pressure from within my chest. Assuming heat association, I drank water and relaxed indoors but I was restless as all he11. I started getting a feeling like my brain was hot then it sent a heat wave down my neck. I could feel a waving motion down my neck and directly after that it felt like the tips of my ears were on fire. My stomach started to hurt and getting dizzy so I started thinking food. I ate and laid down only to realize sitting still only amplified my symptoms. I had an epiphany so I got up to google palytoxin and found a link to a familiar website and the last sentence in the first paragraph had me going straight to the E.R. Palytoxin - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Before I left, I called Poison Control (PC) they were no real help but they did call the hospital before to prepare them; which did not speed things up at all
During the wait I informed them of the entire situation. As time passed and I paced (restlessness and subduing all of my symptoms) my lips went numb and it tasted like I had a quarter in my mouth. My arms and legs starting tingling. All other symptoms got stronger but with the heat in the brain came cloudiness and dim vision (it seemed they dimmed the lights in the building) like I was going to pass out so I warned the front desk, still no triage, 2 minutes later they came and brought me straight back to a room. All my vitals were elevated a bit but normal my temp. periodical went up to 100. They drew blood and waited 3-1/2hrs for the results white blood cell count was at 19,000 and the toxin levels were not disclosed to me but "they had to wait for PC to get back to them..." I started feeling better about hr. 3. I felt the worst was over at hr. 6 so I asked to leave. They called PC back I guess no bad news so they released me. When home and with some struggle I finally got some sleep but woke up with craps in my legs and stomache. I am feeling better but I still felt some dizziness. It was by far the weirdest thing I ever felt; how well I could feel all of the sensations was unreal.
During the wait I informed them of the entire situation. As time passed and I paced (restlessness and subduing all of my symptoms) my lips went numb and it tasted like I had a quarter in my mouth. My arms and legs starting tingling. All other symptoms got stronger but with the heat in the brain came cloudiness and dim vision (it seemed they dimmed the lights in the building) like I was going to pass out so I warned the front desk, still no triage, 2 minutes later they came and brought me straight back to a room. All my vitals were elevated a bit but normal my temp. periodical went up to 100. They drew blood and waited 3-1/2hrs for the results white blood cell count was at 19,000 and the toxin levels were not disclosed to me but "they had to wait for PC to get back to them..." I started feeling better about hr. 3. I felt the worst was over at hr. 6 so I asked to leave. They called PC back I guess no bad news so they released me. When home and with some struggle I finally got some sleep but woke up with craps in my legs and stomache. I am feeling better but I still felt some dizziness. It was by far the weirdest thing I ever felt; how well I could feel all of the sensations was unreal.
