Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with coma

How are menstruating comatose women cared for?

amicamentis — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 11:04:47 -0800

What happens when comatose women menstruate? For pre-menopausal women, how does the hospital staff deal with menstruation? Do they use maxi pads or tampons? It seems that laying down in bed would create a mess on the sheets even with maxi pads. Do they wash the women often?

Are there any cases where comatose women were put on some sort of hormonal drugs so that menstruation was arrested? Is the period lessened at all by the coma?

What chance does our cat have of recovery after seizures and coma?

geekgirl397 — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 12:37:06 -0800

Cat in recovery from suspected poisoning. Came out of post-seizure coma, now has suspected blindness, partial paralysis. What do we do next? We found our otherwise healthy 7-year-old cat unconscious on our (5th floor) back deck yesterday at 6.30am. Got her to the emergency room within a half hour. She was limp, unresponsive, pupils constricted almost to vanishing. Tests & X-rays showed no trauma, but hypothermia (low body temp) & hypoglycemia (low blood sugar) as well as shock. She had seizures, both before and after we found her.

After ~24 hours on a glucose drip, in an incubator, with supplemental oxygen, antibiotics (in case of undiagnosed infection), atropine (I think - some kind of antidote for an unknown poison), stomach pumping & ingestion of activated charcoal, she woke up and started eating, responding, moving.

HOWEVER, as of 3 hours post-coma, she still could not support herself on her back legs, and the vet suspected some neurological problems. We've taken her to a neurologist where she is awaiting a consult (while still on an IV). The intern who did see her thinks she may be blind, but i guess we'll know more when she's had a full workup.

This cat's recovery so far is just miraculous. We thought that she was a goner for sure, and I'm pretty certain so did the emergency vet practice, as there was a real sense of surprise & jubilation when we came to get her this morning.

I wonder if anybody else out there has had a cat go through seizures/unconsciousness and then had residual problems. Were they temporary, or permanent?

From the internet research I've done, it looks to me like neurological symptoms such as temporary blindness and paralysis are not uncommon post seizure. What I'd like to know is how soon we should be expecting a change.

We've been warned that the neurologist may want to do an MRI (at a cost of ~3K). We don't want to put our cat through anything unnecessary but we do want to give her the best chance. On the one hand, if, via the MRI, they found swelling putting pressure on nerves, spine or brain, that they could fairly simply surgically relieve, and therefore 'repair' - it might just be worth it. And I imagine we'd want to get this diagnosed & treated ASAP.

On the other hand, she was very, very, very ill and she's been making progress since waking up that you can literally measure by the hour, we strongly suspect is still in with a good chance of recovering on her own (or maybe with some anti inflammatories, steroids etc.). In the ~2 hours between leaving the first emergency vet office and being seen by the neurologist's intern, she had gone from being unable to use her back legs at all to being able to crawl a bit using them.

Anyone seen anything like this - an unidentified poison causing seizures and coma? What about recovery after seizures anyway - could we still be seeing "spontaneous" recovery days rather than minutes after the incident?

We don't want to put our cat through unnecessary pain & distress if it turns out she's unlikely to be able to be treated, or if treatment may not give her any quality of life. But we don't want to give up on her too early.

Any advice?

thanks!!

My young friends wife (27) is in a coma. How do I offer support?

seatofmypants — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 08:55:48 -0800

My friend from childhood - who I haven't really kept up with much even though we live in the same neighborhood - woke up one morning to discover his wife of less than 3 years was unconscious. She is in a coma and it's not clear if she'll ever wake up. They have one kid. How do I offer my support? My friend and I are both 28 and it must be terrible for him to have to deal with this. I am unsure of what I could say to him even though I feel like I should offer some support, maybe in an emotional way.

It's not like we have a regular chat so I have no reason to talk to him outside of this catastrophe. He's also a very quiet and reserved person who keeps his life to himself.

Do I just call up and say: "Hi, I'm so sorry about your wife. How are you feeling?" It sounds contrived and awkward somehow.

Do I just leave him to deal with his stuff and stay out of the way? He has a close family who are with him every step of the way.

Thanks for sharing your tips/experience.

Stories that take place in Hell, Purgatory, comas, nightmares, memory etc etc

unSane — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 05:52:20 -0800

I'm looking for narratives (books, movies, games) in which the protagonist is dead, dying or unconscious, and discovers they are not in the 'real' world at all, but Hell, heaven, purgatory, a coma, a nightmare, memory, or similar. Examples which contain spoilers below the fold. Obvious examples would be The Third Policeman, Stay, The Coma, the game Viridian Room, and so on. Alice in Wonderland sort-of counts but I'm more interested in protagonists who investigate their situation, rather than vanilla '...and then I woke up'. Bonus points if the narrative involves escaping.

For the purposes of the question, stories like Eternal Sunshine, a Nightmare on Elm Street and so on don't count because the protagonist is not completely immersed in the meta-world. I'd let If on a Winter's Night a Traveler slide in though.

What does "karmacoma" mean?

grouse — Mon, 25 Dec 2006 18:53:29 -0800

What does "karmacoma" mean? This word is mentioned in both the Massive Attack song Karmacoma and the Tricky song Overcome. Is this when your karma goes into a coma? Is it just some made-up word that Tricky likes? Previously asked on Kuro5hin but I figured after 3.5 years someone might have some more light to shed on the subject. Apparently the word appears in a Lost easter egg or something, but I'd prefer not to get any spoilers.

Animal in a coma?

ob — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 08:28:21 -0800

Can an animal fall into a coma? This may be a dumb question and of course a definition of what a comatose state is key to answering this but I am curious. Are humans the only creatures that fall into comas? If this does occur are animals just put down? Again, if this does occur is there documentation of an animal recovering from a comatose state? Is hibernation a kind of coma? Ahh, questions, questions...

How long do you want the feeding tube?

bruceyeah — Fri, 25 Mar 2005 16:11:49 -0800

Has the Terri Schiavo situation led you to tell a loved one how long you'd wish to to be kept alive if you're completely incapacitated? If so, how long? We decided 5 years if we're in a vegetative state, 10 years for being in a coma.

Do comatose patients dream?

cmonkey — Tue, 09 Nov 2004 11:41:47 -0800

Do comatose patients dream? Do they remember those dreams when they wake up? Additionally: do comatose patients ever have nightmares that they just can't wake up from (due to the coma)?