did I ever tell you guys about the case study of the guy who temporarily fucked up his entire physiology with earl grey tea?

last year I was trying to find info on bergapten’s phototoxicity (like you do), but instead, I found a case study of an englishman who started having funny symptoms a few weeks after he switched his tea from [default black tea] to [default earl grey tea]. he thought the old brand was causing him upset stomach, so he switched to earl grey, thinking, for some reason, that that might fix it (ftr earl grey is just black tea + bergamot oil, which I have never seen indicated to help gastric issues).

ANYWAY he started getting these weird little crampy muscle twitches in his feet, and then his hands, and then pretty much all through his legs and arms. his vision was getting gradually worse, and the twitches were annoying, so after about 5 weeks of this he sees the doctor. the doctor can’t find anything wrong with his bloodwork or a possible cause, but can measure that yes, your vision has gotten much poorer very quickly. the guy thinks it’s maybe the tea, since that’s the only thing that changed, but the doctor can’t conclusively point to anything so they guy leaves

and keeps

drinking

earl grey tea.

he continues for five more months, even though he’s pretty sure it’s causing him to lose his vision (!!!) and causing involuntary muscle twitches pretty much 24/7.

maybe he bought in bulk and didn’t want to waste it?

anyway, when he stopped, the symptoms completely reversed within about a week. turns out, dude literally drank nothing but tea, all day every day, we’re talking up to a gallon a day, and while our body normally flushes out the bergapten in the bergamot oil before it can stick around and do anything, he was pouring so much of it into his system so constantly, that it was able to build up and act as (I hope I’m remembering this right) a selective potassium uptake inhibitor? which just does weird shit to the solute balances and membrane potentials of like. a huge number of your body’s cells.

I still just can’t get over how nonchalant the dude was that his tea seemed to be making him slowly go blind though