What was he doing checking out the medicines right after the ducklings confirmed that the patient will be ok? Also, it was the colchicine that caused his sickness right?

Thanks for your time!

1. He was confirming that the patient had gotten the colchicine overdose through a pharmacy error (his original hypothesis) and not through tainted Ecstasy. He found that there was a form of cough medicine and a form of colchicine that looked very, very similar.

2. Yes, Brandon got so sick because of the colchicine.

Im confused now....The colchicine that made him sick was the supposed cough medicines his mom gave him when he was already at the hospital??? So what happened to him before that time???

Here's the timeline:

1) Brandon (the patient) is out in the community, doing his thing, and gets a bad cold with a cough.

2) He goes to the doctor and is given a prescription for "cough medicine." (They never name the exact kind of cough medicine. My personal theory is that it's codeine, since it sounds like colchicine and would be close to it on the pharmacy shelf.)

3) Brandon goes to the pharmacy to fill his scrip. Brandon and the pharmacist don't realize it, but there's a pharmacy error and Brandon brings home a bottle of colchicine instead of cough medicine. (The nurse in me notes that in addition to taking the wrong med, Brandon's probably taking huge amounts of it -- colchicine is something you take once a day, while cough meds are something you take four to six times a day.)

This is where the show starts.

4) Brandon calls in sick from work and has some fun with his girl. Whoops -- Brandon's sick for real from the colchicine he's been taking, and he winds up at PPTH.

5) Once he's separated from the colchicine, he starts to improve. But he still has a cough.

6) Brandon's parents show up. Brandon's mom notices that her widdle baby still has a cough. So instead of asking the docs to write for something, she brings in his cough medicine from home to give him. :angry:

7) Brandon gets sicker again.

8) House comes up with his pharmacy error theory but can't prove it -- the pills mom brought in are gone, and that the trip to the pharmacy doesn't reveal anything. (Mom and fiancee didn't notice that the colchicine has numbers on it, so they couldn't tell the pills apart at the pharmacy.)

9) stuff happens on the show, yada yada yada, and the course of Brandon's illness brings House back to his colchicine theory.

He asks Brandon if B had any Ecstasy; Brandon admits to taking the drug, House thinks Brandon got the colchicine via contaminated Ecstasy. So it was colchicine after all!

10) Brandon continues to improve, but still has a cough, so the Ducks offer him some cough medicine. Brandon notices that the pill they offer him is different from the one he was taking at home -- because the stuff he was taking at home wasn't cough medicine at all!!!!

11) Meanwhile, House is still convinced that his pharmacy error theory is correct. (He reasons that contaminated Ecstasy wouldn't have had enough colchicine to make a infrequent user like Brandon so sick.) So House roots through the entire pharmacy until he finds the look-alike forms of colchicine and cough medicine. He was right all along!

(Of course, he could have just looked in the PDR or other drug reference books to have gotten the same information.)


Make sense?

yep thanks!

sorry, with all the medical stuff that I dont understand, i get confused sometimes heheh but I like House so much. I could relate to that guy.

Wow Auditrix!! You go!!!

That was awesome!!!

And patdzon...don't worry.

I'm a nurse and sometimes it takes me a minute to catch what's going on.

Take care,
lfeflght

Audi, you go girl! Two thumbs up! :D

I'm way impressed!

PPD

wow, um, thanks *blushes*

This insanely bothered me, too. I was right there with House on that one. I may not have confronted them like he did, but I'm pretty sure "idiot" would have escaped from my mouth, too. :D

I'm glad you mentioned this. While watching that scene, I thought, "he's opening all these bottles, contaminating all these pills, wasting drugs...there has to be an easier way to find that drug." And now that you mention this, I remember the drug books we used when worked for an insurance company, processing medical claims. When we needed to find the right code for a drug, or find dosage, milligrams, etc, we checked the Redbook, and I believe it also gave descriptions and traits for each drug.

Of course, that wouldn't have made for a dramatic ending to the episode. House making a mess of the pharmacy vs. finding the info in a book... *shrugs*

I wonder if he sneaked some vicodin while he was at it? ;)

Nice run-down of the episode, by the way!

It's a good point - I suspect that House is not going to take the word of a pharmacy register as being accurate.

Plus his knowledge of their shelves probably rates with theirs if this seasons eps are indicative.