A Case Report - Lead (Pb) Poisoning In Children

8 months ago

Lead (Pb) poisoning has become a very big health issue, as it can affect cognition among others, and so it is advised against sternly. I was seeing a Nigerian Nollywood movie yesterday, and it was talking about a true life story of a woman was given Lead (Pb) water to drink as far back as the late 1980s. This was done out of envy and spite for the husband and his family. After seeing the movie, I was emotional and then had to look at what could happen if a child suffered from Lead (Pb) poisoning. I will be creating a story for this purpose of this post where I will be looking at child Lead (Pb) poisoning, and what could happen if such a thing occur.

Since you cannot always control toddlers and little children, it is advisable to always give them what they can play with that wouldn't hurt them in anyway. While some things might look safe, they might not be safe in reality. Imagine a child who was playing innocently decided to chew Lead (Pb) paint from his toys. As a boy, he was just having fun as usual and playing with his favorite toys.

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He began to experience a steady decline in speech and coordination, also he stopped eating. He had been losing weight withing the last one week but he didn't just eat the paints of his toys the week before, it was about a year ago that she noticed that he has been eating his antic toys that she bought for him. Once he chewed the paints in the toys, she would buy another set for him, replacing the previous one but over time, he started to lose ability to pay attention to things for long.

The chewing will continue as you would expect unless the mother takes the toys from him and correct him, and as she tries to do so, she noticed that he wasn't looking well. He complained of stomach ache and she just gave him meds. She also began to notice that his walking patterns were a little funny, his speech slur, and his reaction time was extremely low. This called for concern so she got him to the hospital.

By the time she would take him to the hospital, he had started to tremble in his hands, and after examination, it was seen that he boy was hyperactive, but even though he was hyperactive, he suffered Ataxia. Soon he began to experience some form of hearing loss with him not being able to hear high pitch sounds. This led for more test to be conducted on the boy. Upon urine examination, there was a high presence of protein in his urine (proteinuria) and this started to give his kidneys hard time to function and this could damage the kidney.

Upon blood examination, high level of Lead (Pb) was found and the levels were so extreme that they could cause neurological issues. If he was only exposed to it for a short period of time, he should be fine over time but this won't be, because the boy has been exposed to it for a very long period of time leading to chronic Lead (Pb) poisoning.

Lead (Pb) is a heavy metal that shares similarities with other elements in its group which includes Silicon, carbon, Germanium, and Tin. Elements in the same group as Lead (Pb) would not react with anything in the body alone unless they are added to another element. But while other elements do not react with body functions, Lead (Pb) does this due to its heaviness and the fact that it is divalent. Its presence in the body causes it to attach to other divalent cations in the body such as zinc and magnesium and this is why there are tremors and ataxia felt because these elements are important for muscle contraction.

The interaction between Lead (Pb) and sulfhydryl groups in proteins causes the protein to fold abnormally, leading to the damages of cells and the death of cells. The cell death can go from the body to the brain where it causes hypometabolism leading to the permanent damage of the brain, as a result of water in the brain, known as Cerebral Edema.

Let's imagine for a moment that the boy doesn't experience any brain damage and we intend to remove the Lead (Pb) from his system, then we will have to trust the kidneys to perform this job well, this is if the kidney hasn't been destroyed because Lead (Pb) binds to calcium in the kidneys which are in the tubules and can lead to cell death. To quickly resolve this, the child can be given Calcium Disodium Ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid which binds with Lead (Pb) and mixes well with water allowing it to be removed from the kidneys. With this, the Blood-Lead levels should decrease rapidly overtime. While this method is good at removing Lead (Pb) from the blood, whatever damages that has been done to the body cannot be reversed. Most of the times, Lead (Pb) damages are permanent.