What would Shen Nong Do?

[jonathanschell]

I am wondering whether anyone has experience treating poisoning or more importantly poisoning/ Gastric distress from Mushroom toxicity.

I had an experience this weekend that has left me in a bit of an altered state. On Friday (10/9/09), I was cooking up my daily dose of mushrooms with my omelet – generally two eggs with about a ¼ to ½ pound of chanterelles. Friday though, I had another kind of mushroom as well as my usual chanterelles. This is called Sulfur Shelf – or also commonly called Chicken of the Woods (Laetiporus sulphureus) (aka: Chickens). I had gathered these on Tuesday (10/6/09) and had been finding a lot more Chickens then Chanterelles. I gathered some Chickens that were bright orange with yellow on the edge, and a white undersurface (the classic description for this mushroom); and I also gathered some Chickens that were more of a pumpkin orange color, with tiny black spots on the surface randomly placed, and a white underbelly. This species, I now know to be a subspecies of the Chicken of the Woods called Laetiporus conifericola, which many of my fellow mushrooming friends both gather and consume with little repercussion. At the time, I believed this pumpkin colored Chicken (L. conifericola) to be an older version of the bright orange variety (L. sulphureus), as I have often found them growing together, with the bright orange variety on top, and the pumpkin colored version underneath.

As I was tearing up, and adding the Chickens to my mushrooms which were simmering, I started to get a little sketched out. I had noticed that on the pumpkin colored variety (L. conifericola), that I could see the tubules that formed the spongelike undersurface, but on the bright orange variety (L. sulphureus), I could not see the tubules. I decided that I was sketched out enough not to eat the L. conifericola, and so I picked it out of my now simmering mushrooms. David Aurora in his “All that the Rain Promises and More” field guide says that sometimes Chickens can cause gastric disturbance. So I thought to myself, well a little gastric disturbance isn’t so bad, there are no deadly poisonous look-a-likes, and so I should be ok. I ate my mushrooms that morning with my eggs, and man did they taste good. The L. conifericola tasted rich and loamy, like the best mushroom flavor but times by ten. This is where my story gets interesting, as far as practitioners are concerned.

I will preface all of this that I see my body like I think most herbalists see their bodies. I am the best crucible with which to understand my medicine.

Friday (10/9/09) morning after eating my eggs on the drive in to work, I immediately felt tired, like I just wanted to take a nap. This is not terribly uncommon for me to want a nap after I eat, but generally it is just a slight feeling of tiredness, while this was fairly noticeable. I shrugged it off, came into work and was able to joke with a patient about perhaps eating the wrong kind of mushroom for breakfast, and hopefully I would be here to treat him next week. We both laughed. At 5 pm on Friday, while working on my computer, I began to feel weird. I noticed that my eyes, particularly my left eye was beginning to get hard to focus. I could focus it, but it was much harder to do then it had been. I thought that perhaps I might be coming down with a slight cold, but in the back of my mind there was also the concern about the mushroom. I decided to take some herbs for good measure – I took 4 pills of Jing Fang Bai Du San, 4 pills of Jia Wei Xiao Yao Wan, and 4 pills of Si Jun Zi Tang. I chewed them up, swallowed, them and immediately felt a reaction to the herb. I had a light sweat that instantly formed on my palms, and I began to feel a vibratory sensation in my body. I decided that I should sit down for a while and meditate. When I sat down I noticed that my Stomach meridian from ST 36 down to ST 40 all hurt, with special cramping around ST 37 and ST 40. I did some energy work, running my qi, etc. And was able to clear most of the strange vibratory feeling, but then I noticed that the lower part of my descending colon had began to feel cold, and a little crampy. I decided to needle ST 40, ST 37 and LI 4 all on the left. The overwhelming sensation while treating was of cold in my channels. I put the needles in at dusk, fell asleep, and woke up at 10pm. I took the needles out, and fell back asleep until 12am. I got up, tried to do some more work, and realized that I was now having a full anxiety attack. I had chest tightness, was having problems remembering to take a deep breath, I was obsessing about the mushroom I ate, and I had sweaty palms.

I decided I could no longer stay at work, that I had completely lost my objectivity, and that I needed to go someplace that was safe. I went home, got my bedding, and went to mothers’ house (a retired R.N.) to sleep on her couch – this was at 2am. Once I got to my mothers, and had told her what was going on, I added 9 caps of a milk thistle/ dandelion mixture into the herbs that I was taking.

There is a local story about some people who ate a mushroom called a Death Cap (Amanita phalloides) . This is an ultra poisonous mushroom. 2 of the mushroomers were taken to OHSU – Oregon’s top medical hospital, and 2 drove themselves to their Naturopath. It is unclear what OHSU did to intervene, but both of the mushroomers who had been taken there died. The Naturopath injected both of his patients with an injectable milkthistle extract, and both of those patients lived – and saved their livers. So I knew that milkthistle/ dandelion would help my situation.

I slept fitfully waking up every hour or so. Every time I would start to get anxious, I would take another round of herbs – 8 Si Jun Zi Tang, 8 Jia Wei Xiao Yao Wan, and 9 caps of Dandelion/ Milk thistle. Saturday (10/10/09) morning I woke up at the crack of dawn, feeling physically fine, but with a great feeling of tiredness, and a jitteriness like I was hypoglycemic, my eyes also felt tired. My desire for food was non-existent, but when I began to eat, food tasted good, and I was able to eat a moderate amount. I slept for a while, and then went out mushrooming with a friend. We walked vigorously for 4 hours or so. It felt good, and I felt alive. When I got back to my mom’s we went out and had Thai food, I really wanted some felt Tom Kha soup with Chicken, it felt like it would do wonders for me. I felt internally cold, and like my internal fire had been dispersed. I decided to sleep again at my mom’s just to be safe, I was still ultra tired and still felt cold. All of the research I did on this topic did not give me any clear bench marks as to how and when things would happen. The bench mark for liver failure, like I mention below, is 72 hours. But this is a Western medicine time line, and within that I didn’t know how treating myself with Chinese medicine would alter the time line, and/ or how the health of the body would also affect the timeline. I didn’t even have a bench mark for if one was going to begin to have jaundice, when that would start.

On Sunday (10/11/09), I woke up, ate a bit – my appetite was better, but not nearly like it had been pre-Friday. I went to a friends house and helped her paint her house, but ended up having to take a nap part way in through the day. I left at 4 pm, went and had a hamburger and fries with a fellow L.Ac., and then asked if he wouldn’t mind moxaing me. He put 3 cones of moxa at GV 4, BL 23, and BL 52. The left side was extremely vacuous especially at BL 52, which ended up getting 5 cones of moxa put on it, while the right was within the norm, needing only 3 cones. Then I flipped over and we did moxa on ST 40, ST 37 and CV 4, and points on the same line as CV 4. I felt vastly better afterwards. I then took some herbs that I had previously made for training Qi gong. It has various yang tonics in it including Korean red ginseng, cao guo, sha ren, shi chang pu, gan jiang, and other herbs. I felt good for the rest of the evening, went home, and slept for 12 hours. On waking up, I felt good. I ate eggs and toast, and came into the office. I still feel good. Not so cold, and with only a bit of tiredness.

Monday (10/12/09) 72 hours from initial intake. Tired most of the day. Didn’t see many patients even though it is generally one of my busier days. Still some feeling of cold in the Large Intestine, and dull ache around the Liver organ on the right side.

[jonathanschell]

Tuesday (10/14/09) 144 hours from initial intake. I am fine now. Coldness in the body is starting to change. No longer have cold in the Large Intestine itself, just cold in the Large Intestine channel. It seems that the channels that were affected by this were: LI, ST, SP, KI, CV, and LV. Organs that were directly affected were: LI and LV. Moxa works wonders on this – and has made me feel almost normal. That in addition to Indian food, and yang tonics.

Last night (10/13/09) I had dribbling urination, as if I had a stone in my urethra. Felt the urge to urinate, but I couldn’t get more then a dribble out. Tried later in the night also with not much progress. I woke up in the morning though, and was able to urinate adequately, but the stream was still not as strong as usual. The only thing that I can think of is that I did not drink enough water, but if that was the case, I would suspect I would have no urge to urinate, instead of urge to urinate with no ability to do so. The only other symptom at this point is a dull ache in the area of my hypochondrium/ or right side Liver area.

10/15/09 – 168 hours from initial intake.
Last night in an effort to rid myself of the dribbling urine, I needled, KI 3, BL 60, and ST 36 bilaterally. I suspect now that the dribbling urination was from the ingestion of too many yang tonics. I heated up my system too much. The tip off for this is that while I was dribbling (classically a yang deficiency sign), I also had burning urination. This is a sign of heat for me. It is also interesting that within 24 hours of discontinuing the yang tonics, my urine flow came back, and is almost normal now.

The only remaining sequelae is a slight digestive deficiency. This is easy tonified by eating warming foods, moxibustion, and acupuncture on digestive stimulating points.



A little more about the exact species of mushroom that was ingested. It is called Laetiporus conifericola and is a sub-species of the Laetiporus sulphureus. The article listed below, in the links section (Toxic Fungi of Western …) gives this account:
“Examination of the 158 reports of fungal poisoning surprisingly revealed that seven persons had had almost identical reactions to Laetiporus—nausea and often vomiting within 5-45 minutes of ingestion of the sulfur shelf. Symptoms lasted a few minutes to 2 ½ hours. “
But we know that different people are going to have different reactions based on the strength of their internal organs. Someone with a weak liver organ, is going to be more affected then someone with a strong Liver. Or in my case, a weak Large Intestine is going to allow for the harboring of cold in the LI. Below is a picture of the offending specimen.


Another picture: This is from the Mount Hood National Forrest on 10/1/2009. My hat is gives idea of the size.

A link on toxicology of different mushroom species: although it doesn’t say how long the effects last: http://www.mykoweb.com/TFWNA/Toxic_F...Western_NA.pdf

The article lists that there is possibly a psychoactive component in Laetiporus conifericola but my personal experience was that it caused me severe anxiety, with no hallucinations. Then again I was worried that I was going into Liver failure.

Recommendations: If a patient comes into clinic after eating a mushroom variety that states that it can cause Gastric discomfort, then treat as follows in the below protocol. If patient comes in and says that they have eaten a mushroom that they know is deadly poisonous, then refer them directly to a Naturopath or anyone that has or can inject liquid milkthistle, as soon as possible. It is probably their only hope of surviving Liver failure.

Protocol: Clear the Liver, Support the Spleen, Rescue the Yang Fire.
There are two approaches that might work:
This is how I treated myself: give a combination of Jia Wei Xiao Yao Wan, Si Jun Zi Tang, and Milkthistle capsules. Do this protocol for 48 hours, and continue to check in with the patient. Knowing everything that is going on in their body is important. After 48 hours, begin using moxabustion on the Kidney back shu points, and CV 4, CV 6, ST 25, KI 16, etc. (points in line with the umbilicus). Take the patient off of the above herbs, and then if they are running cold, have a poor appetite, diarrhea, sensation of cold in their body, cold hands and feet, etc. Then put them on a Yang tonic – the hottest thing you can think of – but with no poisonous herbs in it such as Fu Zi. Remember that the Liver still has to process any herbs that are put into the body, so putting more poison does not seem like such a good idea. Moxa these points, daily for 4 days. Set dosage of Yang herbs to be high enough that patient begins to feel warm, but not enough that they get hot. Ask patient to consume East Indian food several times in a four day period – but not to eat it at every meal. Continue to monitor the patient on a twice a day basis.
Bench marks:
If there is going to be Liver failure, it will happen within 72 hours of ingestion of the mushroom. Early signs of Liver failure are not very helpful in this case, as they are the same signs you would be seeing with Gastric distress. They are:
• Nausea
• Loss of appetite
• Fatigue
• Diarrhea
If the practitioner treats as above, it is going to be hard to recognize these signs, as the Nausea, Loss of Appetite, Fatigue, and Diarrhea are all going to be being treated by the herbs.
Once Liver failure progresses, the patient will begin to manifest these signs:
• Jaundice
• Bleeding easily
• Swollen abdomen
• Mental disorientation or confusion (known as hepatic encephalopathy)
• Sleepiness
• Coma
The big key here is going to be the Jaundice. Nothing else will most likely be causing this in your patient other then the toxic mushroom.

Another treatment protocol:
This is conjecture based on my observations and the observations of others. But it is my thought that hot peppers such as Jalepenos, habeneros, and serranos would also help to warm a person’s liver back up. The idea here is that a toxic mushroom is going to be an extreme condensation of yin energy. The dark yin literally will swallow up the light of life, and in order to combat this, one could consume a large quantity of ultra yang substance, such as peppers, which would hopefully fight off the yin. This will also make the patient sweat, which would cause the toxins to go out through the pores, at the same time that they were going out the fecal/ urinary route.