Do You Know the Toxic Effects of Lidocaine During Liposuction? You Should!

We often boast about the Pharmacist being "THE Drug Expert," and most of the time I believe that. We are especially remined of that during October, American Pharmacist Month.
The things we know about drugs sometimes we take for granted. Most of us know the side effects of drugs, but I am astounded at how often people are hurt through the careless and dangerous way drugs are used. This drug thing is hard, but not THAT hard. Why would people not know about the common side-effects of drugs?

This is a tragic case of a 37 year old patient named Rohie Kah who went to a spa for something called 'Carboxytherapy." Carboxytherapy is described on the Spa's website as a "medical service" that injects carbon dioxide into a patient to improve the appearance of cellulite or stretch marks. Now, this patient's family has been advised that "It's just a matter of time before she's dead."

The problem: most likely it was lidocaine toxicity. Watch this video and see if the clinical picture they describe is consistent with lidocaine toxicity:

What's more important is that the FDA put out a Public Health Advisory about this very thing back in January. Here is the link to that advisory. Sometimes people never learn:

http://www.fda.gov/Drugs/DrugSafety/PublicHealthAdvisories/ucm054718.htm