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Fish Poison Makes Hot Feel Cold and Vice Versa
SoyChemist writes "Ciguatoxin causes bizarre neurological symptoms including temperature reversal, a burning sensation, and an imaginary feeling of loose teeth. It is produced by algae and accumulates in the fatty flesh of tropical fish. While traveling to the tropics, a man from England ate some bad seafood that contained the unusual poison. His story, and the tale of some unfortunate sailors of an earlier age who suffered the same affliction, appeared in the current issue of Practical Neurology and was summarized on the Wired Science Blog. Both the Wired blog and the peer-reviewed journal neglected to mention that the potent neurotoxin has been made from scratch by organic chemists."
paradoxical dysaesthesia is hot.
die444die
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Errr I mean...Hot!
Ah yes, good old XNOR poison... It's been a long time old friend.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
C'mon, this is common knowledge among people who hang around the pacific. If you catch a large fish, don't eat the whole thing... eat some, and share around to dilute the risk. People have known this for over 30 years. Large fish have higher risk just because they are older.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ciguatera
...would "Practical Neurology" be where you go if you're planning on having a drinking buddy do your brain surgery?
The article failed to mention where can I get some of this poison? I need to cut down on my heating bill this winter.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
In the Sea of Cortés (Golfo de California), there is a fish known by locals as the 'botete'. It is a type of puffer fish. It causes exactly this kind of problem.
Very interesting the way neurotoxins work...
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Fish poisson?
-1 not first post
It would be great if we found a way to selectively "switch" some receptors. Like, when people suffer from burns to ease their pain. Or maybe in a deodorant that tells your skin it's freezing so you don't sweat in the first place.
The former I'm not too sure about (whether it works or is even a good idea), the latter sounds silly to me, so what could we make out of that? I'm usually not someone asking for applications for a discovery to be "useful", but this is intriguing. Anyone got an idea what to do with that?
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Given the state of our NHS and the mythical availability of dental treatment, I wouldn't put the blame for any feeling of loose teeth down to poison alone...
Can do this too. And cheaper.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
In soviet russia, unusual fish poison that makes you feel hot as cold and cold as hot makes you feel hot as hot and cold as cold.
Why is the assumption always that
Either you are new to
Personally, I have enjoyed the odd view some of my fellow
Enjoy the moment, we have so few.
Life is a great ride, the vehicle doesn't matter
described the amusing case in the October issue of Practical Neurology
Amusing?
including temperature reversal, intense pruritus and increased nociception [...] improved over a period of 10 months
This sounds very unpleasant. This might be amusing if it happened to Osama, but otherwise, this isn't something you'd wish on someone's dog.
I always enjoy reading stories like this where some interesting or subtle medical effect is at work. It evokes images of proactive doctors working closely with patients to really understand their problems and symptoms, delving deep into the pathology of whatever condition they are complaining about. But in my experience, typical doctors in the US are not in the least bit interested in actually studying medical conditions that come across their desk (or, more appropriately, forwarding the situation on to a research pathologist). They usually have a pragmatic "if it hurts when you do that, then don't do that" or "if you are bleeding, I can help you but otherwise you are on your own" attitude. If I came to my doctor and said "hot and cold are reversed after I ate some shellfish," I'm pretty sure the response would be "then don't eat it next time, it just happens to some unlucky people. Drink some water, get some rest, it will go away in a month. That will be $200. Next!" In fact, I'm pretty sure the discussion of shellfish wouldn't even come up because the conversation never seems to get as far as that. I speak with some experience here because I have suffered from a couple of unusual (but not deadly) medical conditions. The response is always the same: "some unlucky people just have that and we don't know why. Have a nice day." Is it something I ate? Something I did? Something in my physiology? Something genetic? "We don't know. Have a nice day." But wouldn't they want to know? I blame this intellectual laziness on HMOs, which tend to put otherwise motivated doctors in a terrible bind. If a doctor wants to do some test to study an unusual condition, they have to justify it to a big business that will determine if the procedure was "necessary." If the procedure is deemed unnecessary but is done anyway, then the patient gets stuck with the bill. If the patient defaults, then the doctor must pay out of pocket. Such procedures are usually very expensive and doctors who do informative procedures that the HMO deems "unnecessary" (even if they are totally legitimate) can easily go bankrupt. In short, there is no motivation for doctors under HMOs to go the extra mile to really understand the cases they are studying in detail.
i\hbar\dot{\psi}=\hat{H}\psi
"what the hell is my wife taking that makes her cold even when I'm sweating bullets!"
Don't worry, in a few more years, she'll be feeling hot all the time. And she'll yell at you a lot. For no reason you're aware of.
But on the plus side, all your hair will fall out, and your children will consider you stupid. Which, all things considered, you are.
Dude, I think he meant for her...
According to wikipedia it doesn't. It makes cold things feel hot, but not the other way around.
Symptoms of Ciguatera poisoningCuriosity was framed, Ignorance killed the cat.