Medical Care
Traditionally, care in ackee fruit poisoning has been focused on relieving symptoms and providing supportive care with restoration of fluid, electrolyte, glucose, and pH balance.
Administer a bolus of hypertonic dextrose solution followed by an infusion of 10% dextrose solution.
Administer activated charcoal, which absorbs 100-1000 mg of poison per gram of carbon, if the patient presents within 4 hours of ingestion. If mental status is altered, consideration should be given to airway protection prior to charcoal use.
Manage vomiting with antiemetics.
Resuscitate volume-depleted patients with dextrose in normal saline.
Manage seizures with benzodiazepines.
If necessary patients sometime require intubation and ventilatory support.
Animal studies have shown early glucose infusion with methylene blue reduces mortality associated with unripe ackee ingestion. Further testing in humans is needed.
Theoretically, the supplementation of glycine, carnitine and riboflavin may be beneficial, but this has yet to be proven in the clinical setting.