Pam and Mike’s Zucchini Surprise
Pam and Mike live on Camano Island and are well known for their beautiful vegetable garden. This summer they had a bumper crop of zucchini. However, one evening when they sat down for dinner, they only managed to take a few bites. The zucchini tasted off…oddly bitter.
Thirty minutes later, they both started having stomach cramps and diarrhea. Pam started feeling better after a couple hours, but Mike continued to be sick throughout the night.
The couple was understandably worried—did they need to get medical help? They really wanted to avoid going in to the emergency department. They had heard that the Washington Poison Center could help with food poisoning, so they decided to give the toll-free number a try.
When Joanne, one of the staff pharmacists, answered the call. She asked a lot of questions about what might have led to the couples’ illness. When she heard the zucchini tasted weird, she immediately knew what the problem was…toxic squash syndrome!
Zucchini, pumpkins, and other squash belong to the gourd family. Plants within the gourd family contain a toxic substance called “cucurbitacin.” Usually, there isn’t enough cucurbitacin to cause any harm to people. Sometimes, though, cucurbitacin builds up and can cause diarrhea, vomiting, and bleeding in a person’s GI tract.
The poison center pharmacist explained that the key to knowing if there is too much cucurbitacin in a gourd is if it tastes unusually bitter—just like the couple’s bad tasting zucchini!
The good news was that Mike didn’t need to go to the hospital. Our pharmacist felt comfortable treating him in the comfort of his own home. She explained that there’s no antidote for cucurbitacin. Instead, the key to recovery is staying hydrated and resting. She recommended a regimen of Imodium and fluids, and said she’d call back a few hours later to see how Mike was doing. She also told them to call her right away if he saw blood in his stool or started experiencing low blood pressure, as he might need to go in to the hospital then.
When Joanne called back later that afternoon, Mike was starting to feel better. The couple asked her a few more questions, including how to avoid squash poisoning in the future. She reassured them that squash poisoning is rare, so hopefully they wouldn’t experience it again. She reminded them that the key is an unusually bitter taste—if they tasted it again, they should spit out and throw away the squash.
If your food ever tastes “off,” or you experience unpleasant symptoms after eating, call us at 1-800-222-1222!