A medical question-Help please

[slateman]

I was just told by a nurse that there is a certain type of insulin that if you give it to a person w/o diabetes they will have a heart attack 72 hours later. Are there any medical type people who could verify this?

[Restola]

um I'm kind of scared to answer this...:)

Any particular reason you want to know?

Without getting specific your body can go into insulin shock.

Try http://www.webmd.com

[slateman]

All right let me explain. I'm an ADJ student (Administration of Justice for those of you who aren't in college). I'm supposed to right a mystery using the information I've learned in class (rigor mortis, lividity, hesitation wounds, ect ect.)

I just thinking about ways to kill off my character. The wife did it to get the insurance money.

[temps]

the wife always does it... And its always for the money... make it so she kills him for his extreme mag ;)

[rhetor22]

She can train the family cat in the ancient irish art of Shwiggidi Shaggidi, then sick the cat on him.


I'm no expert, but it seems odd that it would be a 72 hour time span before killing the person though.

[rjvemt1]

i am a paramedic student. taking any med that isnt prescibed to you has serious risks. the problem with killing him off this way is that if he goes to the hospital it can be fixed or the m.e.(medical examiner) will find it during autoposy and then the poloce will start a homicide investigation and the money trail will lead right back to the wife.

here is a better way to do it, give the husband a history of cardiac problems(congestive heart failure, history of heart atacks, atrial fibrilation, whatever) so that he has a prescription for nitroglycerin pills. also give him penial disfunction syndrome(cant get an erection) so that he has viagra pills.

then use this scenerio: he and his wife are gettin it on, or trying to so he takes some viagra. about an hour later he starts having chest pain and, without thinking, he grabs his 'nitro' pills and takes one (you let it disolve under your tongue, just for authenticity), the two drugs mix and cause a massive heart attack and he is dead in just a couple of minutes!

his doctor would have told him to NEVER EVER EVER take these two meds together because this is actually what will happen(i have seen it) but you sound like a smart guy and you can make something up for that!

[oldsoldier]

Here's a different way to kill off your character; strychnine poisoning. These was a case years ago about this; slowly poison the person, but giving small doses of it. Eventually, they build up a tolerance (no idea of dosage or how long for tolerance to kick it). Now, after maybe a year of this, they stop giving it to them (it is important that they get the DAILY dosage). Eventually, this person dies from apparently natural causes. The toxicity doesnt show up in blood screen. It CAN come from hair/nail samples though. There was a case exactly like this in the early 1900s of a woman who killed her husband, by poisoning him every morning with his coffee. Eventually, when she realized he wasnt going to die, she stopped.Well, a month later he did die as a direct result of her stopping his intake (it was found she was using rat poison when they exhumed his body). Apparently, the body went into a type of toxic shock, and died. She wasa later convicted of murder base oh hair analysis.
Well, I'm off to see The Ring! Hope this helped.

[-Jôker-]

i thought without insulin ppl with a certain dibates will die and ppl with the other type die if they take it

[Hamster Huey]

I don't know of any kind of insulin that will give you a heart attack in 72 hours. There _are_ extremely long-acting forms of insulin that can affect your blood sugar as long as 72 hours out from a dose, but there's no magic switch at 72 hours that causes heart attacks. Either that nurse is misinformed or there's some sort of misunderstanding somewhere.

To address Joker's question, insulin can be lethal either in shortage or in excess. Both types of diabetics, Type I and Type II, will die if they are given an overdose of insulin. Normal healthy people will also die if they get too much insulin. Type I diabetics, though, are dependent upon insulin for survival and will die rather quickly if they don't get any. Although Type II diabetics can become insulin-dependent, they are not dependent to the same degree as Type I's. The physiology is different.

[-Jôker-]

thanks hamster huey i know so little about dibetes and i have a good chance of devoloping it :(

[$pam]

I have type 1 diabetes. I was diagnosed when I was nine. I don't take injections, but I have an insulin pump. It is much more convenient than shots. It only uses one type of insulin with a reservoir that lasts 3-5 days, and I only have to change the infusion site (sort of like an injection) every 3 or 4 days.