Trip 'to hell and back' started with a tiny pill

By ROSALEEN MACBRAYNE

One seemingly innocuous quinine tablet, bought across the counter for leg cramps, almost cost an Auckland woman her life.

Annetta Anderson, aged 54, spent days at death's door, losing her kidneys and the tips of toes and fingers after an extreme reaction to the commonplace drug.

"I would like to warn people to be very careful about what they buy to self-medicate," she said yesterday.

"You, too, could be like me."

Mrs Anderson's warning was prompted by the recent revelation that an 81-year-old pilot involved in a fatal accident last May had enough quinine in his system to cause sudden blindness.

Marlborough aviator Neville McDonald had been taking the medicine - best known as a malaria treatment - for muscle cramps.

He was found to have a high concentration of quinine in his system after crashing his Piper Cherokee near Taumarunui, killing himself and two passengers, Tauranga mother and daughter, Heather and Hayley Williams.

Mrs Anderson said she and her family had "been to hell and back."

The West Harbour mother of three was with a friend who was buying quinine tablets from an Auckland pharmacy 21/2 years ago.

"I thought I would get some too, since my husband and I both suffered from cramp."

She cannot remember being given any warning about the side-effects of high dosage or long-term use of the medication.

"It was just passed over the counter."

The instructions on the bottle of 20 pills were to take one or two tablets at night when necessary for cramp.

Mrs Anderson put the tablets away until one night in August 1997, when both she and her husband Merv needed them. She took one 200ml tablet and he took two.

Less than four hours later, Mrs Anderson was struck by severe dysentery and vomiting. Big coloured welts broke out on her face and body.

A doctor who was called was mystified and sent her to North Shore Hospital. By then, Mrs Anderson had collapsed and was sinking into a coma.

Still with no firm diagnosis, she was taken by ambulance to Auckland Hospital, where she was put on life support.

"My whole system just shut down."

The nightmare went on for weeks, with Mrs Anderson suffering renal failure and losing the ends of five toes and three fingers to gangrene.

She underwent corrective surgery and eventually had a kidney transplant after her son, Christopher, travelled from England to be the donor.

"It took me a good year or more to feel like myself again," said Mrs Anderson, who is back working part-time but still tires easily.

"Even now, I'm trying to get my life back into line."

These days she simply puts up with occasional leg cramps and is even scared to drink tonic water because of its quinine content.

Critical care doctors later told Mrs Anderson her hypersensitivity to the pill, causing multi-organ failure, was rare and she was lucky to survive.

Dr Stewart Jessamine, senior medical adviser for the Ministry of Health, said last week that quinine was relatively safe in low doses and most users would have it prescribed by their doctors for cramps.

Although it is not known how many people take the medicine, Pharmac subsidises about 5 million quinine tablets a year, dispensed under prescription as a muscle relaxant.

Consumption has been static since Pharmac started keeping figures in 1993.