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Hypoglycaemia: a little known effect of Venlafaxine overdose

Marie-Catherine Francino1, Marie Bretaudeau Deguigne, Julie Badin

  • 1CHRU de Tours, Réanimation Médicale, 2 Boulevard Tonnellé, Tours Cedex 9, France. cathyfrancino@hotmail.com

Clinical Toxicology (Philadelphia, Pa.)
|March 1, 2012
PubMed

We report the case of a 39-year-old woman who presented with serotonin syndrome and hypoglycaemia likely due to intoxication with a very high dose of venlafaxine. This case of venlafaxine-associated hypoglycaemia was treated first by glucose perfusion, but despite large doses, hypoglycaemia recurred. Blood glucose normalized after injection of octreotide, eliminating the need for hypertonic glucose. Octreotide has been shown to decrease glucose requirements and the number of hypoglycaemic episodes in patients with sulfonylurea-induced hypoglycaemia but, to our knowledge, its ability to resolve hypoglycaemic episodes due to massive venlafaxine overdose has not yet been described.

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