A 25-year-old woman in the US sought medical attention after her blood turned ‘navy blue’ at a Rhode Island hospital.
In a report on New England Journal of Medicine, the woman told her doctors that she had used a pain reliever for her toothache.
On the next morning she felt weak and sick. Doctors diagnosed the woman with cyanotic – a medical term for having blueish skin or nails.
The woman had an “acquired methemoglobinemia” which is rare blood disorder that causes people to produce an unusual amount of methemoglobin, according to Dr. Otis Warren, the emergency room doctor on duty in the hospital.
Warren said that this is not the first time he saw a case like her.
“The skin color looked exactly the same,” Warren told NBC News.
The doctor said that woman could’ve used a lot of medicine containing benzocaine.
The medication can have a potentially dangerous side effect. It can cause iron in the blood to give up electrons, change form and no longer bind properly to oxygen, according to NBC.
The woman was given the antidote for her blue blood.
She was also advised to go to her dentist instead
