A 19-year-old New England man had a life-changing reaction to eating some leftover Chinese food.
The unusual case was covered in the New England Journal of Medicine in March 2021. It recently went viral after a fictional portrayal on YouTube. The man ate a rice, chicken, and lo mein meal left over from a restaurant. His roommate had also eaten the leftovers and, unknown to the man, had thrown up after eating them.
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The man was fine until about 20 hours after he ate the meal. He then began developing a series of increasingly concerning symptoms. It started with abdominal pain and nausea and later escalated to vomiting. Things got worse from there, as the 19-year-old began experiencing chest pain, shortness of breath, and blurry vision.
"Multiple episodes of emesis occurred, with vomitus that was either bilious or red-brown. The abdominal pain and vomiting were followed by the development of chills, generalized weakness, progressively worsening diffuse myalgias, chest pain, shortness of breath, headache, neck stiffness, and blurry vision," the NEJM report reads.
He was taken to the pediatric intensive care unit at Massachusetts General Hospital just as his skin began to take on a purple discoloration.
Once the man arrived at the hospital, he was treated for shock, organ failure, skin mottling, and a "rapidly progressive reticular rash" that indicated his skin was dying. He had a severely high temperature of over 105 degrees and a heart rate of 166 beats per minute.
Necrosis occurred to his arms and legs, and gangrene developed. This resulted in amputations of parts of all 10 of the man's fingers, as well as his legs below the knees.
Further testing led to the man being diagnosed with a potentially deadly bacterial infection called Neisseria meningitidis, which caused his blood to clot and his liver to fail. It was also discovered that the man had received only one of three doses of the meningococcal conjugate vaccine without a booster. He had also had only one dose of the serogroup B meningococcal vaccine out of two or three doses recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The man is recovering well today, considering how close he came to death, but experts warn that food safety is extremely important. Bacteria grows quickly in food left at room temperature, so WebMD recommends leftover food should be refrigerated no later than two hours after it is taken from a heat source like an oven or warming tray to reduce the risk of food poisoning.
WebMD also claims that the idea food needs to cool before it is refrigerated is a myth, and it can be put in the refrigerator even when hot. The site recommends that you don't eat leftover food cold but rather heat it to at least 165 degrees and check the temperature with a food thermometer to ensure even heating.
