Acute bilateral blindness caused by accidental methanol intoxication during fire "eating"
- Department of Ophthalmology, University of Erlangen-Nürnberg, Erlangen, Germany
- Correspondence to: Dr Claus Cursiefen, Schepens Eye Research Institute, Department of Ophthalmology, Harvard Medical School, 20 Staniford Street, Boston, MA 02114-2500, USA; cursiefen{at}vision.eri.harvard.edu
- Accepted 5 April 2002
Methanol intoxication can cause severe visual dysfunction and death. Indeed, small amounts of ingested methanol are sufficient to produce acute destruction of parts of the central nervous system leading to permanent neurological dysfunction and irreversible blindness.1–3 More than half of the methanol related morbidity and mortality is classified as accidental and therefore preventable.1 We present, to the best of our knowledge, the first case of a methanol intoxication caused by accidental ingestion of methanol during fire eating (US, fire spitting).
Case report
A 19 year old German patient was admitted to a Spanish university hospital with acute methanol intoxication. The comatose patient had a metabolic acidosis with pH 7.16 and was treated by intravenous ethyl alcohol and bicarbonate. Neurological examination 2 days later with the patient awake revealed extrapyramidal motor disturbances, and computer …
