Toadstool Poisoning

2024 Author: Rachel Wainwright | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 07:39

Pale toadstool (green or white amanita) is a deadly poisonous mushroom from the genus of amanita, rarely found in central Russia, more often in the southern regions. Not only the mushroom itself is poisonous, but also its juice and spores. It is usually located in groups (less often - separately) on the surface of the roots of deciduous trees, but also comes across in mixed forests. Grebe is most widely represented from late summer to the first autumn frosts.

Source: depositphotos.com

How does pale toadstool poisoning occur?

Due to the variety of external forms, the pale grebe is similar to many edible mushrooms (russula, champignons, floats), while it is considered one of the most dangerous poisonous mushrooms. Most often, inexperienced mushroom pickers suffer from poisoning, confusing a young pale toadstool with a champignon or a float, since it is sometimes difficult to distinguish these mushrooms. Toadstool has no distinctive taste or aroma features - it is a mushroom with a pleasant taste, without any specific smell.

It is important that during heat treatment (regardless of its degree and duration), drying, salting, pickling, soaking, the mushroom does not lose its toxic properties.

Toadstool poisoning occurs when it is eaten in any form.

Poisoning symptoms

A pale grebe emits two significant types of toxins - substances of the amanitins and phalloidins group, the action of which is multidirectional. Amanitins, despite their high toxicity, act on a delayed basis (30 or more hours after ingestion), a quick poisonous effect is characteristic of less toxic phalloidins.

After a few hours of a latent asymptomatic period after eating mushrooms (6 or more), signs of acute intoxication appear:

nausea and vomiting, which becomes indomitable;
copious, offensive, yellow-green or clay-like stools, resembling rice water, often streaked with blood, mucus (more than 20 times a day);
sharp pain in the epigastric region, in the abdomen;
signs of massive dehydration: dry skin and visible mucous membranes, excruciating thirst, a decrease in the daily amount of urine (urine becomes bright yellow, acquires a pungent odor), severe weakness;
headache, blurred vision, confusion, lethargy or excessive agitation (symptoms of damage to the nervous system).

A feature of white toadstool poisoning is a two-phase course of the disease. So, by the end of the second - the beginning of the third day, a period of imaginary well-being develops. The victim's state of health significantly improves, the symptoms of intoxication fade away for 1-2 days, after which they return with renewed vigor, signs of hepatic and renal failure join:

yellowness of the skin, mucous membranes and sclera;
darkening of urine (takes on the color of dark beer);
enlargement of the liver (on palpation, its edge is determined below the costal arch, heaviness appears in the right hypochondrium);
the appearance of visible and hidden bleeding;
acute urinary retention until the complete cessation of urination;
frequent threadlike pulse up to 140 beats / min;
severe hypotension;
a change in the blood formula, a shift in the activity of the coagulation system towards increased thrombus formation (determined in a hospital).

As a rule, the patient dies 10-11 days (sometimes earlier), but death can occur on the first day of the disease with a high concentration of toxin in the blood.

Source: depositphotos.com

First aid for pale toadstool poisoning

In all cases, when the victim suspects that the poisoning was caused by eating mushrooms, an ambulance team must be called immediately.

Before her arrival, you must:

rinse the stomach (drink 1–1.5 liters of warm water and induce vomiting by pressing fingers on the root of the tongue);
to make constant replenishment of the lost liquid ("drinking") in small volumes;
take a saline laxative.

Gastric lavage and laxative use are not relevant if the patient develops rampant vomiting or diarrhea.

It is necessary to perform oral rehydration in small volumes so as not to provoke the resumption of vomiting attacks, which leads to an aggravation of the patient's condition due to the forced loss of fluid.

When is medical attention required?

Qualified emergency medical care is required in 100% of cases of death cap poisoning due to the extreme lethality of the disease. The later treatment is started, the less chances of a positive outcome, because during the asymptomatic period, despite the absence of any complaints, toxins affect the organs of the gastrointestinal tract and penetrate into the systemic circulation, damaging the central nervous system.

By the time the first signs of poisoning appear, the level of the toxin in the blood and tissues is already critically high, which explains the complexity of further treatment.

Possible consequences

After consuming a quarter of the mass of one average fruiting body of the pale toadstool, whose weight is 70-100 g, an adult develops severe intoxication, and a child, due to high sensitivity to toxins, death.

There is no consensus about the lethal dose, but most researchers believe that the following doses are lethal: α-amanitin 5-7 mg, phalloidin 20-30 mg.

Thus, in 90-95% of cases, the fatal outcome for a middle-aged adult man develops when 1 mushroom is eaten.

Prevention

To prevent possible poisoning, you cannot buy mushrooms from street vendors, along highways, in open markets.

When picking mushrooms, one must remember the external distinguishing features of the white toadstool:

unlike champignon and greenfinch, the plates under the cap do not change color, remaining white even in an adult mushroom;
white wrapper up to 5 cm wide at the bottom of the leg, at the top - film volva;
thickened formation ("pouch") at the base of the fungus.

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Olesya Smolnyakova Therapy, clinical pharmacology and pharmacotherapy About the author

Education: higher, 2004 (GOU VPO "Kursk State Medical University"), specialty "General Medicine", qualification "Doctor". 2008-2012 - Postgraduate student of the Department of Clinical Pharmacology, KSMU, Candidate of Medical Sciences (2013, specialty "Pharmacology, Clinical Pharmacology"). 2014-2015 - professional retraining, specialty "Management in education", FSBEI HPE "KSU".

The information is generalized and provided for informational purposes only. At the first sign of illness, see your doctor. Self-medication is hazardous to health!