Spin (House)

House (TV series) episode
episode_name = Spin
episode_no = HOU-206
airdate = November 15, 2005
writer = Sara Hess
director = Fred Gerber
guest_star = Sela Ward as Stacy Warner
Currie Graham as Mark Warner
Kristoffer Polaha as Jeff


season = 2
diagnosis = Air embolism
Pure red cell aplasia
Thymoma
Myasthenia gravis

Spin is the sixth episode of the second season of "House", which premiered on the FOX network on November 15, 2005.

Plot

A famous cyclist who wants to race in the Tour De France is brought to House's clinic after collapsing during a race & being treated at the scene by medics. He is surprisingly honest about several illegal medications and techniques he applied to himself, but his sickness is not caused by any of these. House believes he is not completely honest, whilst Cameron does not cope well with the patient's foul play. House also gives Stacy a hard time, mainly because of her new husband, Mark, who is under therapy at the hospital.

In the course of making a diagnosis the team deduced the presence of an air-embolus. When the air-embolism was found and removed, without helping his symptoms followed by system-wide muscle weakness, Encephalitis or nerve-damage or paraneoplastic symptomatic bone cancer is differentiated, none of which is confirmed. Then and throughout most of the episode, House is convinced he is taking animal cultured Erythropoietin (short half-life EPO) which acts by binding to a specific erythropoietin receptor (EpoR) on the surface of red cell precursors in the bone marrow, stimulating them to transform into mature red blood cells. As a result the oxygen level in blood reaching the kidney rises and the amount of EPO produced naturally decreases, thus presumably causing all of his symptoms as he fails to produce red blood cells on his own (Anemia caused by acute Acquired pure red cell aplasia). However, after responding to Prednisone (an Immunosuppressive drug) treatment by losing more red blood cells to the point of requiring a transfusion, House instructs to go scan his neck, when a Thymoma is found (causing chronic PRCA and previously countered Myasthenia gravis). The team realizes that Jeff's illegal treatments have inadvertently been keeping the aplasia under control, and now that the condition has been diagnosed, he can continue his performance-enhancing Blood doping without penalty, on the grounds that it is medicinal (at least until the required Thymectomy is done and takes effect in up to 3-5 years, at which point medicinal Steroids may also be prescribed).

Clinic patients

Tom Lenk plays a young male flight attendant who comes to the clinic complaining of incessant incontinence upon quitting smoking. Convinced that his problem is directly caused by the lack of cigarettes, he appears to ask House for justification to return to smoking, but House, finding that the young man has chewed sugarless chewing gum constantly (six packs daily) since he quit smoking, attributes the incontinence to the laxative properties of the sorbitol used to sweeten the gum.

External links

* [http://www.fox.com/house/ FOX.com-"House" official site]
* [http://televisionwithoutpity.com/show.cgi?show=151/ Television Without Pity-"House" recaps]
* [http://epguides.com/House/ House Episode Guide at epguides.com]
* [http://www.tvguide.com/tvshows/house/100213/ TVGuide's Page: Full list of House Episodes]
* [http://www.housemd-guide.com/ House M.D. Guide]
* [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0412142/ "House M.D." IMDB Profile]
* [http://politedissent.com/archives/984 Medical Reviews of House: Spin]