Theobromine/chocolate poisoning in a human-bird hybrid character

[bluerosekatie]

Hello!

EDIT: Thank you to everyone who added details, this is the result! (Locked to AO3 users to avoid AI scraping)

I have been looking into chocolate toxicity as it occurs in birds, since I want to write a scene where a human character with significant amounts of bird DNA tries chocolate and regrets it. I'm not planning on killing her, but I do want to figure out an accurate amount of chocolate to give her for it to make sense. Looking at the treatment methods, I would probably want a milder case of theobromine poisoning but enough to be a close call, if that makes sense. How much chocolate do you think she'd need to have, and what would be the proper course of treatment?

Comments

[pallas_rose]

As a human doctor I have nothing to contribute but wanted to note that I am very glad chocolate is not poisonous to us... I ate a leftover Lindt gold bunny yesterday and it was divine

[full_metal_ox]

Good for you! You could do with some creature comforts.

[bluerosekatie]

Ah yes, mood -- I had someone point out if she remembers not being part-bird and having chocolate then this would be a big disappointment to her lol!

[conuly]

Theobromine sorta is, actually. You'd just have to eat an awful lot of Lindt bunnies in a very short period of time. Or... actually, I doubt you could eat enough milk chocolate bunnies to do it, you'd have to ingest your theobromine in the form of raw cocoa. I don't know why you'd do that, but you could if you wanted to. (At least in theory. As the article points out, one of the early effects of theobromine poisoning is vomiting, not that you probably wouldn't already feel queasy from all that chocolate.)

[bluerosekatie]

Yes, lol, I did look it up in general earlier and was a little surprised to find that out. I sometimes feel some of the effects so perhaps I should be careful with chocolate myself!