looking back at '09 and found this: on April 21st was sent to a severe allergic rxn, 2D. walked into the house to find a black girl, a little plump, early 20's sitting on the floor up against the couch with major swelling to her face and neck and hives all over her arms and legs. the firefighter/first responder alerted me to the fact that he just hit her with an epi pen (one of the only 'drugs' a fireman carries so he was amped up that he got to give it). we quickly loaded her on the stretcher and bolted to the ambulance, the pt did not eat anything new today and did not have any new meds. the only thing she did differently was go to a different hair stylist and got a weave about an hour ago. i looked at her head and saw her scalp was bright red, bam...there's the culprit. got her on the monitor and she was the first person i have ever been able to go down the entire length of the anaphylaxis protocol. gave her 50 mg benadryl, solu-medrol, albuterol neb and she was still swelling and her airway was getting restricted. called med control and gave her epi IV...that was the trick, damn did that not work fast. had never given a person with a pulse epi IV before. the entire time i had a fireman with me and all he did was use shears to cut out chunks of her weave. we walked in to the recess room and the staff felt so sorry for her they made us stop and one of the nurses got very tiny scissors and cut the rest out. lets just say up until we got into the ED we weren't too worried if it was half her hair and half weave.
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