What was with the exploding head?

Wilson happens to yawn during the conversation in which he has just learned of Foreman’s resignation notice (at 7′:23″ in the episode). House picks up on that clue, pointing out that Wilson couldn’t possibly be tired late in the morning, drinking coffee moreover, nor could he possibly be bored with the conversation, and proceeds to start interrogating Wilson about it, starting off listing possible causes: “Vasovagal issue, maybe a heart problem.” Moments later (8′:35″), during a meeting with his team for the case at hand, House throws in the question “What is pandiculation symptomatic of?” (and here i had to look it up, and apparently it has more to do with stretching than yawning, the latter often being an accompanying phenomenon. Even the etymology of the word points to stretching. Wilson had not stretched, he had simply yawned. Hum.) Foreman starts with “Yawning is a symptom of fatigue or cholinergic excitation.” Chase offers “Cerebral tumor, epilepsy… ‘could also be a medical reaction to antidepressants or some meds for end-stage liver failure.” Later (25′:50″), when Wilson confronts House for having spiked his coffee, although still on the “speed”, he yawns again, at which point House resumes the interrogation about it, this time suggesting but either a cerebral tumor (in which case Wilson would have “only six weeks left to live”), or the antidepressants.

The Wikipedia article on “Yawn” seems to differ quite a bit on the causes of yawning. What say you?

Anderson, I thought the same thing about the macular biopsy. The macula lutea is the area where light is focused on the retina. Sticking a needle in there would cause irreparable vision loss.

Also, wouldn’t spiking someone’s coffee with drugs result in an arrest and immediate suspension of one’s medical license?

And as for the Vicodin… Wilson was obviously high, plus he knew House had the Vicodin on hand, and Vicodin is a downer. It is dangerous to combine uppers and downers (yay speedballing /sarcasm), but as Wilson said, it was “so I don’t stroke.” And he only took one (as far as I could see) which was probably only like 5 – 15mg, so it was about as cautious as he could’ve been.

…and I’m sure he felt pretty fine afterwards, lol.

1. 30mg of amphetamines shouldn’t raise someone’s heart rate to 185 bpm unless they are extremely sensitive or have a heart condition. Wilson would have got speedy, but not THAT speedy. Maybe it was a higher dose, I just assumed 30mg based on an earlier post. (The caffeine in the coffee could have contributed to the jittery and unpleasant nature of the effects though)

2. Why would Wilson ask for vicodin when he is speeding? That would just make for a risky speedball combination that would be even more dangerous! If he asked for benzodiazepines it would have made more sense. Unless, of course, he figured he might as well get more high and take the edge off, risks notwithstanding.

3. Most anti-depressants have such high incidence of easily noticeable side-effects you’d think that House would get suspicious sooner.

After slipping amphetamines into Wilson’s coffee, he explains his behavior to Wilson by saying: “You’ve been buying coffee for the past couple of weeks” or something to that effect. So Wilson had probably been dosing House for a while by that point, and House was just beginning to feel the effects.