After watching Hulu’s movie, Run, have you ever asked yourself, ‘If Trigoxin drug is real, is it being monitored by the authorities?’ After all, the public’s access to the drug could cause severe security issues. Here is all you need to know about Trigoxin and the other drug from the movie.
So you have followed the movie, Run on Hulu and are intrigued. Other than the psychological motives and disturbing events of child abuse, you are moved by the presence of such a harmful drug. ‘How could they sell these paralysis pills without running background checks or without seeing the prescription?’ you want to know.
But before that, your concern focuses on the reality of Trigoxin. After all, this drug doesn’t seem to be real. And you haven’t found it at the nearest pharmacy or online. You want to know if this drug is available to the masses and if it is available how its sale is controlled and monitored.
This post will analyze the drug and its effects in the light of the movie and compare it with reality.
The Movie Run
In 2020, Hulu presented the movie, Run. It follows Chloe who is a college graduate looking forward to her university admission. What’s striking about the girl is her physical health. She is wheelchair-bound, suffers from asthma, diabetes, and arrhythmia. Her medical conditions mostly keep her out of social life to the point that she has to be homeschooled by her mother.
The story moves forward when Chloe discovers a pill among the groceries with a scrapped-off label. Unable to understand the label, she gets suspicious of the pills and investigates about it going to an extreme length. She even had to sneak out of the movie theatre to visit a pharmacy for this investigation.
There, her investigation bears fruit and she finds out that the green pill – which is none other than Ridocaine – is responsible for her paralysis.
Unfortunately, this incident alarms her mother who starts chaining her to the wall at home. Using her wit, Chloe succeeds in alerting the authorities leading to her rescue from her home of imprisonment. The movie ends with the presentation of a reversal of abuse which is now directed from Chloe to her mother.
As the movie was based on a true story, people started speculating that the events weren’t dramatized but were depicted to showcase the real-life case. Accordingly, the speculations of Trigoxin being a real drug started spreading.
Is Trigoxin Real?
Was the drug of focus in Run was real? Or they create a fictional name only to add a central point to the psychological thriller?
You would be relieved to know that the drug in question was, in fact, fictional. No drug is named Trigoxin.
Also, note that the pharmacist later points to a drug – known as Ridocaine in the movie – that works for dogs to numb their pain. You may have wondered if that drug was present in the veterinary world or not. Be aware that that name also doesn’t relate to a medicine administered to the dogs.
The Real Drug behind Trigoxin
Although Trigoxin is not a real drug, the writer may have taken the idea from a drug of a similar name in the real world. In fact, both of the drugs which are mentioned in the movie can be found in the real world if we allow some change in their names.
First, we shall talk about Trigoxin. This drug, in the movie, was intended for human use. It was used to strengthen the heart and was supposed to arrive in red pills. According to Chloe’s mother, the drug could cure different heart ailments including flutter and heart failure.
If we search its presence in real-world pharmaceuticals, we would come across a similar name – Digoxin. Interestingly, the drug ‘Digoxin’ performs the same functions Chloe’s mother described in the movie. Simply put, Digoxin maintains heart rhythm and ensures the healthy circulation of blood in humans.
Just like in the movie, Trigoxin (real-life Digoxin) is not related to leg numbness. The only side effect that can relate to Chloe’s condition can be drowsiness. You cannot use it to numb a specific part of the body. On the contrary, the effect will manifest on the mind cascading to every body part.
The Real Drug behind Ridocaine
The second major drug that is featured in the movie is Ridocaine. The director presents it as a dog medicine. If we closely search for a green pill in the veterinary world that can numb canine pain, we find a drug of a similar name – Lidocaine.
No, we cannot find it in pill form as it is a local anesthetic and is only applied to the body part that needs to be numbed.
Lidocaine is developed for dogs and it treats pain that may have occurred because of sunburn, cuts, or bites. The medicine is categorized under external medicine and comes in ointment form.
As we can see, this is the major difference between the movie-based drug, Ridocaine, and real-life dog medicine, Lidocaine. The former arrives in pills while the latter is only marketed as an ointment.
Other than this major difference, the two drugs appear similar to the point that both cause numbness. You guessed it right, if you use it on the legs, the legs will feel weak and numb. It can also cause the symptoms of paralysis. The longevity of these symptoms, however, is not confirmed for humans.
Another symptom that is similar in both the movie and the real world is the drowsiness it creates.
The movie highlights the effect of the former when a human uses it instead of a dog. But that information cannot be confirmed for humans simply because of the fact that real-life medicine can’t be taken orally.
What You Need to Know
Okay, so we have uncovered both drugs that could relate to those mentioned in the movie Run. And we can confirm that the drug in question can have the same debilitating effects as are described by the film. These findings may sound unnerving to you. After all, the movie is freely giving away destructive information to the masses.
The chances of wrong people using the drug naturally make a huge concern. Shouldn’t there be a ban on films from disclosing such destructive information? There should be laws in place that control the fictional naming of such dangerous medical information.
If you have all these concerns, know that films aren’t allowed to share information regarding the process of hurting a person or property. The information presented in the case of these drugs was obscure and misleading. They were obscure because the names weren’t spelled rightly.
Now, you may be questioning how this information was misleading. We see the so-called Ridocaine drug as green pills. This is the first effort at misleading the audience. This drug is not taken orally. Instead, the owner applies it on the painful spot of their dog externally.
On top of misleading the identity, this fact sabotages the whole theory of taking the medicine by mouth. Even if people get this drug to satiate their malicious intentions, they cannot get the victim to eat it because of its appearance. Even if they manage to feed the ointment to the victim, the consequences may not be much severe for singular use.
The Law Regulating These Drugs
You can also breathe a sigh of relief knowing you are further safeguarded by the law. Unsurprisingly, these drugs are regulated by the regulatory authorities unlike what is depicted in the movie.
Lidocaine and other similar drugs are categorized as anesthetics. You will be relieved to know that these drugs are heavily regulated and are usually only available to health practitioners. In those rare cases when the drug is as mild as it can be sold to the users directly, the transaction is done only after viewing the prescription from the doctor or veterinarian.
Similarly, any drug that can potentially harm the user because of its known side effects is regulated by relevant authorities in every country. For the USA, this authority is Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Take Away
The psychological thriller movie, Run was eye-opening as it unveiled possible ways a caregiver can abuse a child. The most troublesome fact of the movie was its connection to a real-life case.
It could get more troublesome had it shown the actual drug that could lead to debilitating health for the child. Fortunately, this information was kept from the public eye. Instead, the company didn’t disclose the detailed method that could lead to such health conditions of the child.
Most importantly, the drugs indicated in the movie – Trigoxin and Ridociane – were both fake making it difficult for child-abusers to take pointers