Accidental pill overdose/poisoning help needed

Look, here’s the situation. A close friend of mine attempted suicide by overdosing on pills. He’s in the hospital right now, and thank God he’s still alive, but I am absolutely livid—honestly, once he’s out, I’m going to lose it on him myself. They told me he took a massive amount of medication, though I don't know the specific names. I'm just wondering if there will be any long-term side effects or lasting damage from this. Please, I really need some insight here. I am genuinely terrified for him. 😢

I actually knew this woman once who tried to end things with an overdose, but she only took a tiny amount and didn't actually die. It’s weird because that didn't stop her from jumping from a fourth-floor balcony a couple of years later to really finish the job... but honestly, that's not what we're here to talk about right now. The thing was, after that first attempt, she was left with these permanent side effects where she just couldn't coordinate her movements at all; she couldn't walk straight, was always swaying, and dealt with these intense hallucinations... it was probably some kind of brain damage even though she only took such a small dose of pills, so I guess the prognosis isn't great. It really just depends on exactly what someone takes and how much they ingest, you know?🤷

It truly all hinges on the specific medication involved. There is a distinct possibility that there won't be any lasting physical consequences at all, which, quite frankly, is how most of these suicide attempts end up playing out.
There remains the very real chance that even the doctors haven't fully grasped the situation yet.
All you can do is wait, and once the dust settles, you’ll need to step up and support your friend in whatever way you possibly can, because they are going to need it.
Best of luck.

So, I’ve got a question on my mind. A friend of mine ended up in the ER after taking way too many sleeping pills. Now I'm wondering—when they go through the whole stomach pumping process, do the doctors actually check for pregnancy? Like, does that even factor into their protocol, or are those two things totally unrelated? I'm trying to figure out if she could go through the entire procedure without anyone ever finding out if she's pregnant. She’s pretty convinced she is, but her last period was a month ago and the hospital visit was like two or three weeks back.

I mean, why on earth would they even bother giving someone a pregnancy test right after a suicide attempt? It feels so weird. A friend of mine was telling me that maybe the person just needs to start being a bit more responsible for themselves, because honestly, if they keep going down this path, they aren't going to make it very far. I guess she's right, but it's still just so heavy.

Look, I wasn't suggesting they were running a targeted pregnancy test on her or anything. I just meant when they draw blood—would they catch something like that during routine work? Since she ended up spending some time in the hospital because of the poisoning, I’m just wondering if the tests they run to treat toxicity might accidentally flag a pregnancy along the way.

Jerry King7 said:well, I wasn't suggesting they'd run a targeted pregnancy test—more like, if she's getting blood drawn, would they just stumble upon it? since she was hospitalized for a while because of this... I'm just wondering if tests done for poisoning could accidentally pick up a pregnancy.

Basically, if you want to find something out today, you have to test specifically for it. Targeted. In other words, if they're just pulling blood for a CBC—a complete blood count—it doesn't actually cover everything, even if the name sounds like it does.

It’s the same thing when an unknown cause of death is being investigated—they test for common toxins. But to actually find out if something was in the blood, there has to be a reason to suspect it first.

All these tests are designed to use certain reagents—depending on the situation—that react to a specific substance.

If you aren't testing for pregnancy, you won't know if it's there or not. Now, whether they ran a non-standard pregnancy test on her just "in passing"—without any reason to—I honestly don't know...

Alan makes a really good point here—searches related to accidental poisoning have absolutely nothing to do with looking for pregnancy signs. And honestly, you can't just stumble upon a pregnancy diagnosis through those kinds of searches. Plus, if she was actually at an ER because of a pill overdose, they wouldn't be running pregnancy tests unless there was a specific medical reason; the two things are totally unrelated.
Besides, based on what you said, even if she were pregnant, it might have only been about a week at that point? I mean, I don't think any test would even pick up on that yet.
But seriously, where's the actual issue? If she’s worried she might be pregnant, she should just take a home test right now and get it over with—problem solved. Or, you know, just go see her doctor.