Health Care > Can using nebulizer treatments cause death?Related Photo
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50 yo female died suddenly. House full of used nebulizers. How did she get so many? Kept using them to try to breathe that night and turned blue and died. Could she have had RX for so many? She worked part time in drs office.
Had breathing problems for over year. Sounded like Emphysema and was heavy Smoker.
While it is theoretically possible for the albuterol to have a role in the death of a patient it is rare. It is much more likely that her death was precipitated by her inability to get enough oxygen into her lungs. Like you implied in your description, she was likely suffering an acute exacerbation of her emphysema, was unable to breathe and was using the albuterol nebilizers in an attempt to relieve her shortness of breath. This action is very helpful for mild to moderate exacerbations but for a severe exacerbation like she was apparently suffering, additional medications such as steroids for the airway inflammation are necessary. In many cases, a person needs to be sedated and placed on a ventilator machine until the exacerbation can be brought under control.
It is the prolonged lack of oxygen which leads directly to abnormal potentially fatal Heart arrhythmias.
Unfortunately, it sounds like she persisted too long in trying to treat herself.
