A Man Drank 12 Energy Drinks In 10 Minutes. This Is What Happened To His Organs.
JS is a 36 year old man, presenting to the emergency room with breakthrough abdominal
pain.
He tries to tell the admitting nurse what was happening, but he had to grip the armrests
of his chair to stop himself from emptying his stomach on to her shoes, again.
You see, JS was a man living the dream. When he was growing up in the 80s, he was always
around video games. His parents liked playing them. But, JS didn’t have friends who played
video games, because he really didnt have any friends at all.
When he was 14 in 1998, Pokemon had just come out. Some of the Pokemon in Red and Blue could
only be had if players traded with each other on their gameboys, but because JS didn’t
have any friends, he could never make the trades needed to get those Pokemon.
As the years passed, what JS didn’t have as a kid, he tried as hard as he could to
have as an adult. If he couldn’t have Gengar when he was young, that’s a Pokemon that
required a trade to get, then JS had a lot of Gengar as an adult. If there were games
and movies he didnt have as a kid, he had them as an adult. But these were material
things. If he didnt have friends and recognition as a kid, then he tried as hard as he could
to get them as an adult.
One day, at his workplace, JS thought it would be funny to chug some energy drinks. The admin
loved to stock them in the fridge, and the company always touted the drinks as a wonderful
benefit for a great place to work.
At the table now, JS wanted to put on a show. He was going to chug 12 energy drinks in 10
minutes, and it was going to be legendary.
At first it felt cold on the way down. He could feel the burn at the back of his throat.
But as the cans continued, the burn started to become discomfort as it felt like sores
were growing and tearing up his mouth.
Immediately after chugging all 12 energy drinks, JS didn’t feel well. The bottom of his chest
was burning. He wasn’t sure if it was his stomach or his heart hurting. He was short
of breath and to take his mind off of everything, he started playing some games.
As the hours passed, JS could feel his heart fluttering. But this shouldn’t be happening,
he thought. For him, caffeine really never had much of an effect. Even if the max daily
recommendation is 400 milligrams a day, JS easily pushed seven, eight, nine hundred milligrams
during LAN parties and weekend gaming marathons. I must just have good genetics to breakdown
caffeine quickly, he thought.
What started as a discomfort at the bottom of his chest started radiating out to his
back, in-between his shoulder blades. JS knew he was wired, he could feel it all throughout
the night while he was playing games and watching his friends stream. He thought taking a small
shot of some other drink could help relieve some of this pain.
But problems started happening when JS emptied his stomach into the kitchen sink. He had
been feeling nauseous for several hours. After letting it all go in the sink, he started
feeling even worse. He could feel his heart beat in his eyes. The back pain would burn
just under his neck, and the pain in his stomach would come in waves, each one more intense
than the last.
Any time he tried drinking some water, that water would come right back up. JS tried holding
out for a few days, because he believed that none of this could have been the energy drinks.
Those should have already passed through his body, so it must be something else. But
finally, JS couldn’t eat anymore. He couldn’t drink anything anymore. And the pain was so
sharp and burning as he calls for 911, and he’s brought to the emergency room where
we are now.
Doctors noticed that JS was nauseous. He had already thrown up on the nurse’s shoes.
His breathing was stressed and he said that his abdominal pain would radiate to his back,
like someone had taken a crowbar and started prying it apart.
A blood test finds that JS has hyperglycemia. Hyper meaning high. Glyce referring to glucose,
another name for sugar. And -emia meaning presence in blood. High sugar presence in
blood. Each can that JS drank had more than 50 grams of sugar. 12 cans means that he chugged
over 1 pound of sugar in 10 minutes, so hyperglycemia should make sense. But the problem is that
he chugged those energy drinks more than a day ago. He hadn’t eaten anything afterwards
because his abdomen just hurt so much. And the body typically tries to get rid of excess
blood sugar as quickly as possible, so sugar shouldn’t be high in his blood.
The pancreas releases insulin to help lower blood sugar. JS has abdominal pain, and the
pancreas is in the abdomen. There could be a problem with his pancreas, maybe it’s
not releasing insulin. Maybe something is blocking it from releasing insulin, or maybe
it is releasing it, and his body isn’t responding to that insulin. This could mean that JS has
diabetes. But that isn’t in his medical record, and another test of his long term
blood sugar levels suggest he had prediabetes. But with the pain and the vomiting, doctors
have a different idea of what could be happening.
In the emergency room, doctors use an ultrasound machine to get an idea of what’s happening
to JS’s pancreas. Maybe a gall stone is blocking it, backing up flow, and causing
problems. But they didn’t see anything there.
As they sent him in for a higher resolution scan, more results come back from the lab—
JS has hyperlipasemia. High Lipase Presence in Blood. Lip from Greek Lipos referring to
lipids, or fats, and -ase referring to enzyme. High fat degrading enzyme, presence in blood.
Lipase comes from the pancreas. It helps us digest the fats we eat from our diet. If its
levels are high in the blood, then it means the pancreas is leaking it out. And if it
digests fat, and the pancreas is partially made of fat, then it means that JS’s pancreas
is starting to digest itself.
The abdominal pain radiating to his back. The nonstop nausea and vomiting. The inability
to keep anything down and the hyperlipasemia. All of these together meaning JS has acute
pancreatitis. -ITIS meaning an inflammation of the pancreas, because something happened
to it, enzymes started leaking out of it, and now it’s starting to digest itself.
Acute meaning this is all happening suddenly, and the medical team wants to know why.
In the emergency room, doctors don’t know that JS chugged 12 energy drinks in 10 mintues.
He didn’t tell them that. What doctors do ask him, is if JS consumes a lot of alcohol.
Because he’s young, excess alcohol may not have permanently damaged the liver yet—
that takes some time, but it can hurt the pancreas suddenly. It’s the second most
common reason for pancreatitis, after gallstones, which the ultrasound showed, he didn’t have.
JS did say he did have one shot of liquor when the pain started. They took his word
for it. But they were suspicious thinking that it could have been more than just a shot,
but the reality was he took the shot several hours after the pain had already become severe,
and doctors just had no idea about the 12 energy drinks.
JS was started on IV fluids. He was dehydrated because he couldn’t keep any water down.
They give him medicines for the pain because it’s so excruciating, and everything seemed
to be going OK. But only for a short time.
When body parts appear to be damaged, the immune system reacts. This is to protect you.
The problem is, sometimes the immune system overreacts. And it does that overreaction,
when it shouldn’t be reacting in the first place. JS’s pancreas digesting itself is
body part damage, so the immune system is there trying to protect him from that damage.
But when inflammation, pancreat-ITIS, happens, the area can start to swell with fluid. And
in JS, where his pancreas was supposed to be, is starting to swell with fluid.
Typically in a 36 year old man with no diagnosed past medical history, this kind of pancreatitis
resolves itself. The medical team elects to watch and wait, because even though his abdomen
is swelling with fluid, doing surgery and cutting him open could be doing more harm
than good. Even if the image looks scary, the body has a way of healing itself. And
as a few days pass, things seemed to be holding steady, JS probably didnt need to have that
surgery, and he’s probably ready to go home, they thought.
As the medical team gets ready to discharge him from the hospital, everything seems to
be going smoothly. But as the hours pass, JS starts to get chills. He starts running
a fever, as his blood pressure starts to drop. His heart is trying to keep up by pumping
harder and faster, but it’s not enough.
Another CT scan finds that gas is now in the space where the fluid was swelling. The stomach
and the intestines have some air in them, but they’re usually closed off so their
contents don’t leak in to the abdomen, so if JS’s stomach isn’t punctured, then
where could this gas be coming from?
A blood test finds that not only are JS’s liver and kidneys starting to shut down now,
but that he now has an infection. If bacteria and fungus floating around in the abdomen,
outside of the stomach, can produce gas, then it means that fluid buildup from his inflamed
pancreas, is now infected. But it doesnt just stop there. Whatever is infecting him, has
now spilled in to his bloodstream. The immune system detects this and tries to react again
by dilating the body’s blood vessels. But this drops the blood pressure. Adequate oxygen
can’t get to organs like the liver and the kidneys, as they start to shut down. JS comes
in and out of conscious as limited oxygen gets to his brain. All of this happening from
pancreatitis in JS, that came from chugging excess energy drinks, as he finally utters
to the medical team what happened.
But why did this happen? Good question. Generally, most people know that energy drinks can be
dangerous when consumed in huge excess. If you have one once in a while, and you’re
young and healthy, it’s probably not a big deal. But if you start chugging multiple cans
back to back, then bad things are probably going to happen.
Most people immediately think of the caffeine content. Each can that JS drank had 160 milligrams
of caffeine, so 2 cans get you very close to the recommended daily limit. Too much caffeine
can make you wired, make your heart race, your breathing will become fast, it’ll make
you shaky and jumpy, and in some people, lots of caffeine will feel like a panic attack.
This energy drink cardiotoxicity, has been well documented. Check out this video from
my cardiologist friend MedLifeCrisis, link in the description below.
Energy drinks are more than just caffeine. And we dont know exactly how much of any one
of these ingredients are in a single can. No one intended for someone to chug 5 and
a half liters of anything in 10 minutes. What we do know, is there might be an association
with excess energy drink consumption, and pancreatitis. It’s not just the caffeine
and stimulants in there that’ll get you in the heart. Whether it’s chugging 12 cans
in 10 minutes, or drinking three, four, five, six cans a day everyday, the pancreas can
get injured. We can’t experiment on people in this setting— because we can’t give
everyone huge amounts of energy drink until their pancreas starts digesting itself. And
of the people who do drink 6 cans a day, we can’t cut them open and look at their pancreas
at any given time, because it’s buried so deep inside the human body.
For JS, this became a wake up call to him for his health. He didn’t have diabetes,
but the blood test said pre-diabetes. He didn’t have hypertriglyceridemia, which can come
from diabetes and cause pancreatitis. But the lesson is pancreatitis can spiral out
of control very quickly, even when the patient looks great and ready to go home, just like
JS. He was holding steady, until his organs just suddenly shut down because the inflammation
got infected, and spilled in to his blood.
With supportive care, and antibiotics. A diligent medical team, and a renewed sense of life,
realizing he had everything he could ever want, JS was able to make a recovery.
If you’re interested in the Presenting To The Emergency Room mug, or other Chubbyemu
merch, link to my store is in the description below.
Thanks so much for watching. Take care of yourself. And Be Well.