Distractions (House)

"Distractions" is the twelfth episode of the second season of House, which premiered on the Fox network on February 14, 2006. In this episode the team treats a teenager suffering from burns, and House uses himself as a test subject to disprove the authenticity of migraine medication being developed by another doctor whom he doesn't like.

Plot

A father named Fell is driving an ATV with his son Adam on the back. They pull to a stop and the son convinces him to switch places. While driving, the boy spasms and tightens his hand on the throttle, and they go running wild. The father is thrown clear, but Adam crashes into some pipes and the ATV bursts into flames. The boy is airlifted to Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital with burns over 40% of his body and taken immediately to the E.R. Foreman interrupts House to do a differential due to low potassium and House agrees – his diagnosis for Adam is not hopeful, even ignoring the massive burns.

Meanwhile, Nurse Brenda approaches Dr. Cuddy and requests equipment for a lecture that a Dr. Weber is giving – Cuddy determines that House has invited him. She confronts House, who is working on a coma patient who has a migraine – he gave the patient a migraine to test some new medication.

The staff uses a galvanometer to check Adam's heart, since he does not have enough skin to do an EKG. The parents report he used marijuana, but is not on any other drugs that they know of. Adam goes into convulsions, leading House to suspect MS, but they're unable to give him the standard lumbar puncture or radiation tests of his brain. At House's suggestion, they perform a transcranial Doppler sonogram.

In the lecture hall, Cuddy introduces Dr. Philip Weber, who studies headaches. House is lurking in the audience and Wilson confronts him, learning that Weber and House both went to Johns Hopkins and studied under the same teachers. It turns out House was supposed to get an internship until Weber accused him of cheating. House plans to prove he's a bad scientist. The staff uses images to check Adam's eye-response patterns, which will show up on the Doppler scan. They find signs of a bleed, and Foreman breaks in on House, interrupting the lecture. House speaks in Hindi to Weber, saying 'bahut shukriya' meaning 'many thanks' and 'teri ma ki', which is a swear word in Hindi. Foreman and Chase try to locate the bleed while House confronts Weber on his supposed breakthrough in India and Weber finally figures out who is confronting him. House disputes Weber's study, claiming that if Weber had made a genuine breakthrough, he would not have published it in an obscure Indian journal. House determines that Weber's reasoning is that few people in the US would be able to read the Indian study and thus would not question its findings. House tells Weber the result of his experiment on the coma patient, but Weber asserts that House needs a live, conscious person to test. Supposedly using intravenous injectable nitroglycerin, House induces a migraine in himself to test Weber's medicine, which does not work. Foreman administers some medicine to help with House's migraine but clearly he's not operating at capacity.

Meanwhile, the unconscious Adam has an orgasm in the hyperbaric chamber. The team concludes that something has crossed his pain and pleasure receptors, which may indicate infection. Cameron suggests they wait, but House proposes they use maggots to eat the dead flesh from the burns. Wilson confronts House on how he inflicted the pain on himself to make up for pushing Stacy away. The staff report the maggots are working on the burns but the brain irregularities are still present. House orders a risky lumbar puncture and Foreman reluctantly advises the parents to approve the test. Foreman successfully performs the lumbar puncture, but the test is negative. They have no other way to test for the telltale lesions so House goes into Adam's room and has the anesthesiologist wake him up. Adam is in incredible pain but House needs to know if he felt tingling while on the ATV – Adam says he urinated and then blacked out, after which House knocks him back out.

Later, House attempts to treat his migraine by taking a shower and using psychoactive drugs (heavily implied to be LSD). He is discovered by Cameron after he has begun to hallucinate. House meets with the staff, fully recovered but a bit vague on what he took. House concludes that Adam was taking anti-depressants which accounts for the seizure, and the excess serotonin is the result of the medicine. Serotonin syndrome is lethal, but treatable. House wants to speak to Adam again, but the parents stop him. House confronts the parents to determine if Adam was suffering from depression. The parents are sure he's told them everything, and House has no choice but to go back to differential diagnosis. He still cannot explain the orgasm and goes into Adam's chamber against the parents' wishes. The parents get Foreman, who intervenes, but House notices a mark on Adam's wrist – a perfectly circular burn, separated from the burns covering Adam's chest and back. House confronts the parents with the fact Adam has a cigarette burn and nicotine stains. He determines that Adam was trying to break his habit and using cheap anti-smoking aids that contained antidepressants.

Later, Cuddy confronts House and wants to know if he took LSD. House admits he did so to cure the migraine, combining the LSD with antidepressants to control the hallucinations. Weber barges in and complains that House told Weber's corporate sponsors that his drug does not work. House tells Weber they're "even." The father wonders if Adam will blame him for the accident. Later, House is sitting at home. A prostitute knocks on his door and he lets her in, telling her he is simply "looking for a distraction."

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Distractions

• "Distractions" at Fox.com
• "Distractions" at the Internet Movie Database
• "Distractions" at TV.com
• "House MD Episode Guide"