My interest in anesthetics has been re-awakened - by Puffer fish and Michael Jackson.

I did a year of anesthetics as part of my tortuous career - and even have a diploma in it.

The other night, Mrs. Gagg, pulled from her wall of - what her rescue squad buddy Wayne so unkindly calls her “sleeping material” (i.e. she has shelves and shelves of dreary DVD’s/video tapes) - The Serpent and the Rainbow.

Who’s going to write a thriller that does not rely on the hero being a complete idiot and putting himself in a situation that no sensible person would dream of?

But I digress. It’s about this bloke that is trying to get a sample of Zombie powder for a pharmaceutical company that will market it as an anesthetic.

The little disclaimer at the end notes that there really is such a drug, namely tetrodotoxin (TTX to make it easier) that various pharmacologists and boffins have been experimenting with for it’s potential as a local anesthetic - because it paralysis the peripheral nerves by blocking the sodium channels, but doesn’t cross the blood brain barrier.

TTX is found in newts and frogs - which are probably not part of the standard American diet (maybe we could get Micky D’s to make frog burgers?), but most prominently in puffer fish - in its skin, intestines, liver and gonads.

Now TTX is 10,000 times as toxic as cyanide when ingested - but the Japanese eat the damn stuff as a delicacy. If you get the dose right, it just makes you euphoric, and not dead, but it must be “prepared only by licensed chefs”. Damn right.

“The risk of overdose adds a thrill” and the connoisseur dips his meat in a puree of the most toxic organs.

Mmmmm. Pureed Puffer Fish gonads. Who could resist that?

With just the right dose, TTX causes “progressive paralysis without loss of consciousness”. Not a happy situation.

Along the same lines, the South American arrow poison curare  is used as a paralyzing agent in the practice of anesthesia. This also does not sedate. The victim dies from the poison when the respiratory muscles get paralyzed, but if you have someone on a ventilator, they can be wide awake, feeling everything, and completely unable to move - you just hope like hell your anesthetist is paying attention and keeping the sedation/analgesia adequate while the surgeon carves on you.

So TTX kind of does the same, but the claim is there have been cases where the respiration and heart rate have been so depressed as to be imperceptible and the person has been certified as dead. And then is buried.

Then, when the stuffs worn off, if you are lucky enough to get dug up again, you’re a little freaked out (especially if you were poisoned surreptitiously, and think the whole thing was because someone put a hex on you). You are kind of zombified.

My Colon and Michael Jackson

 Not breathing with a very thin pulse is kind of the state Michael Jackson was found in by his “personal physician” Conrad Murray - who probably could do with a little sedation himself.

There have been no reports of his eating puffer fish, but he was given the anesthetic propofol (marketed as Diprivan) - allegedly administered by Dr Murray -  to help him sleep.

Now there’s a bad case of insomnia.

I recently had a colonoscpy. When I had one before I got Versed, but this time the anesthesiologist told me, gleefully, “we’re going to give you the same as Michael Jackson had”.

Really reassuring - just hope no Dr Murray.

Pretty heavy stuff. I felt like shit the rest of the day - lot of anticholinergic effects,  sleepy, dry mouth, could hardly pee - or fart out all that air they blow you up with (despite the nurses risqué quip that “this is the only time a woman will ask you to pass gas”).

Now I’m not really postulating a connection between propofol and TTX, though they both pique interest in my old specialty.

I’m sure Michael was not brought back from the dead prior to his final exit (after which I guess his possibilities were screwed by the autopsy) - it just seems such a concidence that he always looked so much like a zombie.