DOSE:		oral	Animals - Fire Ants
		oral	Coffee	(liquid)

BODY WEIGHT:

170 lb

I was making coffee in my room each morning at the start of the semester before my loan money arrived. I will admit that I was not always the cleanest person. I usually left the whole pot alone until I cleaned it at night to set it up for the next morning. When my loan money came in I started to drink the more expensive coffee offered on campus and ignored the coffee maker in my room. After a couple of weeks I was down too much money on designer coffee and decided to make a pot of normal stuff.

I opened the basket and found that a ton of fire ants had made a home out of my filthy coffee maker. Well, I cleaned the pot out as best I could. Then I ran some water through it to clean out any ants that were left. My mistake was assuming that all the ants were in the basket or flushed from the first pot.

I brewed a pot of coffee and started to drink it. I failed to notice the little ant bodies floating in the pot. After a cup and a half my whole face was tingling and felt numb in patches. It didn't take me long to sort out what was going on. The ant toxin was in the coffee. I slowly drank some more just to see what the affects would be like. They were pretty unpleasant. Really tingly itching all over my face and I started to feel flush. I stopped at this point and went and drank some water. My roommate had a steroid injector so I wasn't worried about having a real bad allergic reaction. Having more didn't really add to the affect. Once I had started to feel it the toxin was pretty much working in full force.

I have very mild reactions to bites from these ants. If I had been more allergic it is likely I would have needed that steroid injection and a trip to the hospital. I did not do this on purpose and I would not do it again. But it was a unique experience with caffeine. It was funny in a way to feel both of these interactions at the same time. This is by far the strangest pot of coffee that I have ever had.

Exp Year: 2003	ExpID: 29703
Gender: Male
Age at time of experience: Not Given
Published: May 30, 2006	Views: 87,823
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Coffee (173), Animals - Fire Ants (296) : Alone (16), Difficult Experiences (5), Combinations (3)