Lifetime has recently been running a made-for-TV true crime movie about Stacey Castor, who (SPOILER ALERT) poisoned one of her husbands with antifreeze (and that wasn’t even her most monstrous crime). A darker star turn for the woman from My Big Fat Greek Wedding.
Temporary Name, given the tenor of this thread, I feel obliged to point out that Castor was caught and sentenced to 25 to life for the antifreeze killing.
It depends on the dose. It is theoretically possible for a person to ingest small amounts repeatedly and survive, although it isn’t a good idea.
It is not always a straightforward matter to diagnose, as the Wiki article says -
“Dose makes the poison” pretty much across the board. It is going to be difficult to prove, after the fact, that it wasn’t ethylene glycol poisoning. Unless they did gas chromatography on the patient every time they were admitted, and that’s not likely.
How can you prove it wasn’t self-poisoning? You probably can’t.
Regards,
Shodan
And here’s another story aboutLynn Turner who poisoned not one but two husbands with antifreeze. She was sentenced to life without parole - but took her own life a few years later.
I suppose I should thank you both for the warnings, instead I will refer you to post #9. In addition I will tell you that I am attempting to prevent any poisoning rather than trying to commit one—especially one using antifreeze. That should be apparent soon enough.
EDITORIAL NOTE: Believe this is addressed below but want to be clear, I also suspect self poisoning of some sort. But using antifreeze is something I doubt for a variety of reasons listed below. However I am asking so those better informed than I am can educate me—I will accept whatever the facts show.
Okay we are at a time when there is no longer any point in withholding any information. The subject is the child I have raised (my nephew) whom I have been responsible for since my sister died when he was six years old (and the person I most love in the entire world). He had a very difficult childhood and despite my efforts at giving him a normal life he has significant mental health issues.
Over the last six or eight months he has been in hospitals several times a week, or if he has been given a bed- for about a week to get discharged. Often the condition is severe, even life threatening and different doctors at different hospitals have told me these things cannot be faked. CANNOT BE FAKED! So I learned to ask a better question, yes- they could be self caused, almost always by taking medication inappropriately. Hence all the tests for opiate use (all negative except one time when an unrelated injury caused him to be prescribed an opiate). There is little doubt he is causing this circumstance somehow, but he is fooling the entire medical profession as far as I know. Also, it is very dangerous before you even get to the possibility of antifreeze. (Why I want to find out the truth – but more below.) His first hospitalizations were vague symptoms; upset stomach, fainting, ‘seizures’, etc. I have learned state law deems hospitals must take the patient at his word unless it is contradicted by something substantive like a medical test. Now he sometimes has dangerous heart rates or blood pressures that must be induced. (Again, I am not defending the position that he is not causing this, I believe he is. I am saying it is unlikely he is using antifreeze—but I remain open to the possibility.)
No tests for antifreeze has ever been done as far as I know (and I have almost all medical papers), but something has to be causing what is a very serious and dangerous series of conditions. Recently when he was evicted, a container of antifreeze was found under the bathroom sink with other chemicals (cleaners and such) which are almost all deadly. After the fact, his mental health clinic has determined that the antifreeze “hidden” under the sink is the cause of his numerous hospitalizations. As a result of that flippant conclusion someone who needs help is instead in grave danger of incarceration instead of treatment.
Because they are a licensed agency in the field of mental health, their reports are taken as gospel by officers of the court. Despite the fact that there is no direct evidence, and that he is not careful enough to use antifreeze to trigger over forty hospitalizations without killing himself, he is now being treated as a criminal (and I know he must be committing some crime) rather than as a someone who desperately needs help. I am not saying: “No way, not my kid!” I am saying we need to know for sure what he is using to cause these episodes. The “well it isn’t the usual cause, and antifreeze was found . . .” is a little circumstantial to me. If it is antifreeze I want to know it!! But if it isn’t I don’t want everyone involved assuming it is because it is written in a report (without a bit of substance to back it).
Lastly, I know I must be biased by my role in his life—but I am of the opinion his clinic sucks and causes more problems for him than they correct. I believe they were well intentioned in the beginning, until he caused so much paperwork and so much trouble. Now they just want to punish him (which he deserves) but without helping him; far more interested in reducing their paperwork than in helping him overcome his challenges. I could tell you stories about them, but right now I am far more interested in figuring how to help this kid.
McAfee will not let me access the second link, the CA poison control one. Is there another way to see the information?
Obviously I have no answers, but here are a few things to consider:
During the times when he was in and out of the hospital, was he eating well? Had he been losing weight? - Some poisons are concentrated in the fat, and can be released more or less when the patient isn’t eating well. Put them in the hospital, they have three squares and a snack, they get better. Let them out, they don’t eat breakfast one day, and the cycle of illness->not eating->ILLNESS starts again. I think moth balls are one of the causes for that.
Is it possible that their real goal is a long-term mental health facility? - If he has been microdosing with ethylene glycol to sidestep drug and alcohol screenings, then he may need it. Usually that’s how these infractions are used.
Contact a specialist in toxicology. Fed-ex a copy of his records without any background re:the antifreeze and see what s/he says. Push for the proper toxicological tests are done to nail down the diagnosis.
And questions: Is there any legitimate reason for him to have the antifreeze? Does he have a history of self-harm, cutting, etc.?
McAfee may let you override individual sites, I’m not sure how. I just checked the link, it is fine. I’ll summarize.
Even with the knowledge that someone may have consumed antifreeze, it is very difficult to tell without the specific test for ethylene glycol. That test is usually not immediately available.
I want to say that the antifreeze may be something of a red herring, there is no reason to believe he has ingested it beyond it having been found one time, correct? You say that the hospitals haven’t checked for it. That means that they are looking at other means of causing his symptoms. You need to make the staff aware that this (antifreeze) is a possibility to rule it out if there is a next time.
This sentence;
" I have learned state law deems hospitals must take the patient at his word unless it is contradicted by something substantive like a medical test."
I have worked in hospitals in 5 different states and I am unaware of any thing similar to this. I think you may have misunderstood something. Ultimately it doesn’t matter. A hospital is going to look at whatever is likely to be causing these episodes. If there is any reason to look for antifreeze, they will, regardless of what the patient says.
There are many, many medications that could cause his symptoms. Many of those medications require a specific test to look for them. Without an indication of what he may have taken, it is going to be difficult to track down (as you’ve seen).
I hope you have a good resolution to this.
Just coming back to say that I hear your pain, and am so glad you are there for this young man. Please don’t give up.
Thank you, it would be nice if he appreciated mt efforts . . . um, more consistently.
Yes, the usual suspect seems to be opioid use, and after several negatives the second suspect was over use of prescribed psych meds. No one has ever tested for antifreeze, and the idea was born after a minimum of twenty hospital stays (visits without being admitted puts the total above forty). I have done as much as possible, and will continue to be diligent to be sure antifreeze is tested for in any future events.
The reason I began asking is that I don’t believe antifreeze is what he is using, but his clinic put it into a report as an established fact, and that report has been widely circulated. Their basis is only that he had access to it, and it isn’t caused by what they first claimed was the cause. I was hoping someone would say “taking a small dose of antifreeze would elevate heart rate and blood pressure”. Alas, it does not seem to be so simple to dismiss the claim.
First, thank you for the well wishes.
The statement about the state law was repeated in different health settings by different healthcare professionals. But it is not about believing what the patient says he took. It is about treating the patient for what their complaint is, if the patient complains about being pregnant they have to test for pregnancy for example. The strongest it was ever stated was by a staff member of the hospital he was in at the time while talking to his educational team on a conference call. I was in the school as part of the team and heard the following exchange. The school administrators started off pretty cool and professional – but eventually they said something like: “Come on! You just gave us all this background, you must at least suspect …” This was after a pretty long exchange between the hospital and the school nurse. The hospital said: “Of course we suspect foul play, but state law mandates that we treat a patient for what their complaint is without regard to our views of the matter.”
The thing I took from the statement was that hospitals have to assume there is a wolf no matter how many time the patient has called wolf in the past. The school wanted him discharged so he could get seat time and not have to stretch his career over an additional semester (it was well established there was NO medical risk), but the hospital staff replied essentially- we are going to play it by the book because we must, even though we suspect there is nothing to the claim.
Thank you for this wealth of information. I was hoping I could acquire a silver bullet (have seen it happen on this board before) that would give me some way of getting him out from under the accusations of a clinic that is not honest and fair minded. I would rather not start a pissing match with them, but I am not going to allow them to start submitting fiction to the courts.
Certain types of antifreeze, along with ‘caustic chemicals’, can be used to manufacture methamphetamine.
Some types of cheap antifreeze contain enough alcohol to potable to an addict.
Amphetamine and alcohol withdrawals combined can present as strange issues to medical staff when they have neither proper information nor data (since the tests were for other substances).
Sorry I wasn’t clear. Distillers certainly throw away the head; there are are reasons enough to do so besides methanol poisoning. The myth, quite possibly believed by some distillers, is that all the methanol comes out first.
This seems unlikely to me, he actually refuses to drink at all under any circumstances (which I know is very unusual in his circle). Except for one time when a roommate gave him a pill that was supposed to be an aspirin, he is not a drug user. This is not a parental blind spot; I know he could fool me potentially. What he can’t do is fool me, and his entire housing staff, and his clinical staff, and his school. No one thinks he takes drugs to get high—but perhaps occasionally to be admitted to a hospital. What you are describing sounds like someone far more immersed in a drug culture. He is as naive as a twelve year old, but has all the rights and privileges of an adult. This is another reason I don’t believe he has ever ingested antifreeze – he is just too much of a dumbass, he is not capable of pulling it off without disastrous results.
In short it is very unlikely he could be suffering from withdrawal, but I will pass this on to the healthcare professionals for consideration.
(Also, it couldn’t be as variable-- he has been denied admittance at one hospital, then gone to a different hospital within hours and been admitted with genuine symptoms on various occasions. Withdrawal would not appear and disappear like that, but something must cause the symptoms which develop within an hour.)
Tell us again, as thoroughly as you can, what are the symptoms?
Please see private message.
You were clear. You even quoted the part of the article as explanation. Nobody who read your post fully was confused.
That said, even a pot distillation will partition components by boiling point. Just not necessarily very well. That methanol can be found in all fractions does not falsify the claim that it is concentrated. So I share your concern about the claim.
Ok the literature on this is beyond the scope of what I’m going to access on my phone. I’m finding mixed messages on azeotropes for the ternary system.
It’s worth pointing out that smaller animals tend to have faster metabolisms - and birds in particular are known for having really fast metabolisms. This is why canaries were used in coal mines for CO detection: they showed symptoms of CO poisoning long before miners did, giving the miners time to evacuate before falling ill themselves. So while gulping antifreeze might quickly kill a duck, it doesn’t follow that a human would be rendered dead just as quickly, even assuming a scaled-up dose.
Thank you DesertDog and Ruken. I understand the post now and did my own reading and you are right - Methanol does NOT concentrate in the heads. I stand corrected.
I’ve put a link for easy reference :
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1002/jib.441
“ In turn, the solubility of the methanol in water, owing to its capacity to form hydrogen bridges, ensures that it is present in all fractions (often in the greatest concentration in tails), regardless of its lower boiling point “