Figure 2A, B: peripheral blood smear with basophilic stippling of red
blood cells(arrows)
The patient stopped drinking alcohol and marijuana abuse. Chelating
therapy with Succimer was initiated, with a dose of 500 mg (5 capsules)
daily and now after 4 weeks the blood lead level has declined to 25
µg/dl and there is 6 kg weight gain. All signs and symptoms were removed
and all laboratory findings changed to normal condition. Although there
are some documented researches supporting the correlation between
hypertension and lead poisoning, in our case, marijuana withdrawal could
also be the cause of sympathetic overactivity(3). Table 1 shows the
transition of laboratory data from the first presentation to recovery
time.
Table 1: The initial and final (post-treatment) results of the
laboratory tests