The patient who swallowed 200 pieces of chewing gum a day
Sydney doctors report on the man who presented with the severe hyponatraemia due to excessive amounts of gum that he was using to alleviate the side effects of a drug
Swallowing hundreds of pieces of chewing gum a day played a role in the severe hyponatraemia seen in a patient who presented an “unusual diagnostic challenge” for Australian doctors.
The 62-year-old had been chewing up to 200 pieces of gum a day to dampen the effects of a treatment suggested by an alternative practitioner, according to the Sydney clinicians.
He had originally presented to his GP after several weeks of progressive fatigue and feeling generally “washed out”.
The man described how he started taking intranasal desmopressin for nocturia on the advice of an integrative health practitioner he’d visited several months earlier.
