American Tourist ROSS WESTCOTT CHAGNON Dies of Dysentery in Phnom Penh, Cambodia

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Albror
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Re: American Tourist ROSS WESTCOTT CHAGNON Dies of Dysentery in Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Post by Albror »

Cam Nivag wrote: Wed Mar 13, 2019 11:41 pm
Albror wrote: Wed Mar 13, 2019 11:03 pm I had diarreha for well over a month, maybe two months but i went to the doctor first when there clearly were blood in the stool as well.
Is this why expats are always dying young? Do they not go to doctors?
Depends on what age you consider to be young but people dying from not taking care of infections seem to be quite common.

Both having a sober day and visiting the doctor is something allot of people wait "just one more day" by doing. Days become weeks, weeks become months.
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Re: American Tourist ROSS WESTCOTT CHAGNON Dies of Dysentery in Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Post by Albror »

Strama wrote: Wed Mar 13, 2019 3:16 pm He probably had runny diarrhea, which causes severe loss of potassium, a very necessary electrolyte to keep ones heart beating. Replacing lost fluids with simple water will further dilute serum potassium concentrations, probably causing his heart to either freeze up completely or caused a fatal cardiac arrhythmia. Yes, this can happen in hot, tropical very quickly, and can kill you in 2-3 days. Need to replace potassium with oral rehydration salts (ORS) or via IV fluids. I keep ORS with me when I travel, they are available at any pharmacy in se asia.
I believe the general knowledge of this with electrolytes is very low. I had no idea myself before my incident.

Bottled water unless its mineral water were its added back after the process contain absolutely NOTHING. So you loose body fluids including its electrolytes all day long and try to rehydrate with plain water not actually containing the parts that is needed to replace the lost body fluid.

Even if you drink unfiltered water it only contain about 3% of the daily intake PER LITER so if you only drink tap-water we talk 33 liters and most of that passes straight through you anyway due to the diarrhea. So he probably needed to go to hospital and get it intravenious as his body could not manage to replace the lost fluids by itself.

Drink sport-drinks like Pocari sweat if you have this but if you start geting cold legs/arms and tingling its time to go hospital asap.
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Re: American Tourist ROSS WESTCOTT CHAGNON Dies of Dysentery in Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Post by John Bingham »

Knowledge couldn't be that low, pretty much every small pharmacy sells Royal D, which comes in either elecrolyte (purple) or Vitamin C (orange).
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Re: American Tourist ROSS WESTCOTT CHAGNON Dies of Dysentery in Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Post by Strama »

John Bingham wrote: Thu Mar 14, 2019 6:14 pm Knowledge couldn't be that low, pretty much every small pharmacy sells Royal D, which comes in either elecrolyte (purple) or Vitamin C (orange).
Royal-D does not have enough potassium (its package states <0.5 meq). ORS (any brand) has 15-20 meq, that means ORS has 30-40 times more potassium than Royal-D.

Royal-D is ok for fluid loss from sweating, exercise, football, etc, but don't use it for runny diarrhea or following vomiting because it will not replace enough potassium to make much difference. Use ORS, with 15-20meq potassium OR 1.25-1.5 grams of potassium chloride.

I only use Royal-D to flavor my ORS powder better, royal-D is great tasting but a poor potassium replacement.
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Re: American Tourist ROSS WESTCOTT CHAGNON Dies of Dysentery in Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Post by Strama »

John Bingham wrote: Thu Mar 14, 2019 6:14 pm Knowledge couldn't be that low, pretty much every small pharmacy sells Royal D, which comes in either elecrolyte (purple) or Vitamin C (orange).
symptoms of low potassium is muscle cramps, like a charlie-horse, and weakness. But, it also can occur without any warning because those suffering from lots of diarrhea are just laying around due to weakness.
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Re: American Tourist ROSS WESTCOTT CHAGNON Dies of Dysentery in Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Post by Strama »

Xxpissoff wrote: Sat Apr 28, 2018 4:47 am Believe he had gastric bypass surgery... perhaps that weakened his GI system making more susceptible to disease? Also rumored that he was robbed the week before and thats how he lost his passport. Many people think this was a murder and body was staged...
If he indeed had gastric bypass surgery, this would explain everything. With bypass, they bypass large sections of small intestine, thus decreasing food absorption, but also vitamin, and minerals as well. Add that to 3+ days of runny diarrhea and add in diluting it all further with plain water replacement, and this make this incident quite plausible.

Over my decades working in the medical field, I have seen those who shouldn't have lived, live, and seen those who should have lived, die.
"It is appointed man, once to die, then the judgement".
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Re: American Tourist ROSS WESTCOTT CHAGNON Dies of Dysentery in Phnom Penh, Cambodia

Post by RickyBobby »

The tips about supplementing for electrolytes are important here. I never knew about that till more recently. If you are drinking a lot of water, you are sweating it out or peeing it out along with your electrolytes so it would be good to supplement, especially if you have diarrhea and cannot hold liquid. Magnesium, Potassium and Pink Himalayan Salt are good to have on hand.

(Q. Does the sodium in beer help at all? Now I understand why the natives eat their fruit with salt.)

I have researched this (Dysentery) a bit more now, I never really knew about it before so its good to be on my radar. But before I ever arrived here, I was so nervous and careful to try to cover all bases. I was concerned about food poisoning, and also got inoculated for various things. They gave me some anti-biotics specifically for diarrhea. I was told that if normal anti-diarrhea pills didn't work after 1 day, to take a course of these anti-biotics and to complete the course of them even if I felt better, and that if I did not feel better in 2 days, to go to seek medical attention.

Thankfully, I have never really had food related sickness.

This is a very sad story, it strikes close to home because this boy is the age of my youngest son, and its such a needless and unfortunate end that could have been prevented.

RIP and my condolences to the family. Tragic.
"Dear Lord Baby Jesus, Lyin in a Manger"
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