15-year-old boy suffers mental disorder, brain and heart damage from e-cigarettes

A 15-year-old male student in Hung Yen was taken to the emergency room in a state of convulsions, agitation, crying, and screaming after using an electronic cigarette containing marijuana.

On October 23, sharing about this case, Dr. Do Tuan Anh, Poison Control Center, Bach Mai Hospital said that male student NQC (15 years old, residing in Hung Yen ) had a history of good health, 10 days ago his family discovered that this student was smoking an electronic cigarette.

According to the family, at around 7pm on October 6, after dinner, the male student experienced stomach pain, nausea, and sweating. At 9:30pm, his eyes were red, he was sweating, his limbs were shaking, he had convulsions, foaming at the mouth, and he was having seizures. The family rushed him to Bach Mai Hospital for emergency treatment.

The male student was hospitalized with multiple organ damage, serotonin syndrome, torsion, mild renal dysfunction, rhabdomyolysis, abnormal blood indices, and leukocytosis.

After examination and testing, ultrasound, and MRI, doctors discovered that the male student had brain and heart damage.

Brain image of male student with damage.

Notably, upon admission to the hospital, the male student appeared agitated, crying and screaming, and tested positive for marijuana. A psychological examination revealed that the male student had a mental and behavioral disorder due to the use of electronic cigarettes.

At the Poison Control Center, the male student was treated for symptoms of brain and heart damage. Because he was still agitated, he was transferred to the Institute of Mental Health for further treatment.

According to doctors, mental and behavioral disorders are the after-effects of the male student using electronic cigarettes containing marijuana. Currently, there is no assessment of heart and brain recovery, but it takes a long time to recover from brain damage.

New generation drugs, especially cannabis, when mixed into e-cigarettes, cause unpredictable harm to users. There have been many cases of hospitalization in a state of cardiac arrest and deep coma due to the use of cannabis mixed in e-cigarettes. Synthetic cannabis detected in some samples of e-cigarettes used by hospitalized patients is ADB - BUTINACA.

Electronic cigarettes used by male students.

According to the authorities, ADB - BUTINACA has hallucinogenic effects similar to synthetic cannabis drugs that are soaked in herbal samples, but is not included in the list of narcotics according to Decree 73/2018/ND-CP dated May 15, 2018 and Decree 60/2020/ND-CP dated May 29, 2020.

This is a new generation of synthetic drugs. Synthetic cannabis is a large group of hundreds of specific chemicals, all of which are extremely powerful new generation drugs. The subjects are constantly changing and synthesizing new drugs every day, quickly going beyond the list of drugs regulated by the management agencies.

At the same time, testing to detect these substances is extremely difficult, because they are new substances, implementing a successful testing process for a substance using machinery and highly skilled human resources takes time, but when the test is successful, new compounds have appeared. The toxicity of each of these synthetic cannabis chemicals is very different and poisoning with each substance is a completely new disease.

Vietnam's leading toxicology laboratories can only test a limited number of synthetic cannabis chemicals, leaving many others undetectable.

Bottle of mixing solution in electronic cigarette used by male student.

Dr. Tuan Anh also said that since the National Assembly issued a resolution banning the sale and use of new generation cigarettes (electronic cigarettes, heated tobacco), the number of cases of e-cigarette poisoning admitted to the hospital has decreased compared to before. However, the clinic still sees parents bringing their children to the clinic after discovering they have used e-cigarettes. There are severe cases requiring hospitalization with symptoms of abdominal pain, or paranoid disorder, and agitation and screaming.

Through cases of hospitalization due to e-cigarette poisoning, Dr. Nguyen Trung Nguyen, Director of the Poison Control Center, recommends that everyone, especially young people, absolutely do not use e-cigarettes.

Because, in electronic cigarettes there are many ingredients that create flavor and smoke. These impurities when burned can cause cancer, lung damage...

Source: https://cand.com.vn/y-te/nam-sinh-15-tuoi-bi-roi-loan-tam-than-ton-thuong-nao-va-tim-vi-thuoc-la-dien-tu-i785520/