Medicine/poisoning - I need some general help

I am not a medical professional, but I do know that ethylene glycol is popular for Munchausen-by-proxy (which is what you're looking at, Munchausen is when the poisoner poisons themselves). That is the main ingredient in antifreeze, and the symptoms are easily mistaken for common diseases. It works well, because if nobody expects poisoning, the doctors usually write the death off as natural causes and no testing is done for toxins, it tastes good, and the victim can linger for months or years with the right dose.

I don't know if this will help, but if you're a House fan, you could take a look at this, which is a bunch of medical reviews by a real doctor of House episodes.

It points out what they do wrong (from a medical standpoint), and sometimes points out more likely scenarios for symptoms when they exist and aren't mentioned on the show.
So, if you can remember a House episode with some symptoms you'd like to write in, you can look this up and see what a real doctor would be likely to try/what it's likely to be.

Yeah, I know, it's a round about way to help, but since I don't actually have any medical training it's all I got

I'm a psychiatrist, so a doctor who is now pretty rusty on medicine not immediately related to mental health or neurology. I do come across plenty of self poisoning though.

i almost didn't post a reply, mostly because you're asking a very tough question to answer . . . for a doctor anyway. My knowledge tends to work the other way around so naming suitable poisons is harder than you'd expect.


You're probably in the territory of older medications though as the drug companies are trying their hardest to make new drugs that don't have really dreadful consequences and they're getting better at it.

You're also in the territory of drugs that get into the brain, so drugs used in neurology or psychiatry. Logic helps so it's more likely that a drug prescribed for tics, or seizures will effect someone's mental state and motor control than an antacid.

To knock someone off their feet you need to either effect their muscles, with something like curare, the old arrow head poison that became used in anaesthetics as tubocurarine, or effect the parts of the brain that control muscles and co-ordination and here things like lithium, barbiturates and even overdosng with other psychoactive drugs comes into play. To modernise your story you could look into poisoning with botox.

Chemotherapy is also a good field to look into as chemo is designed to kill our cells and can make people feel awful.

Drachen Jager's advice about antifreeze is good, as would be weedkillers or something like that, or you could consider the slow type of poisoning that comes from heavy metal exposure, like lead poisoning.

For accuracy though, I'd advise you pick a poison, or a couple of poisons and then work your story around what they do rather than trying to identify a poison that matches what you would like to happen.

Craig

If you're looking at poisoning, may I suggest you walk outside your (fictional) house and take a look around. Lots of common plants/trees can poison someone -- you don't need something exotic like curare.

Plus, many such poisons -- besides being readily available -- can be quite subtle.

Where are you thinking of setting your story?

[*reconsidered*]

You might find a common plant that suits the bill. There are some great plant toxicology texts available online.