What Is Really Wrong With Chloe (& How Accurate Is It?)

In the psychological thriller movie Run, a young girl named Chloe Sherman is made to believe that she is extremely sick by her mother — and the story is so harrowing that many wonder if drugs like Trigoxin are real and if the events of Run actually happened. The story follows a single mother as she tends to her daughter Chloe (Kiera Allen) who is in a wheelchair, requires an inhaler, and takes several rounds of medication a day. Chloe begins to suspect Diane’s intentions aren’t exactly wholesome when she grows suspicious of the Trigoxin her mother has been administering.

After discovering a bottle of Trigoxin pills in the great original Hulu movie, Chloe goes to the pharmacy to figure out what they’re meant for. Chloe has been taking a muscle relaxer that Diane gets for their dog called Ridocaine and learns this kind of medication would cause a person’s legs to go numb. Chloe realizes the reason she’s in a wheelchair is the Trigoxin/Ridocaine her mother had been giving, and that her illnesses are fictitious, but is the harrowing story of the Run movie based on true events, and are the drugs Trigoxin and Ridocaine real?

Are The Ridocaine And Trigoxin Drugs In Run Real?

The Drugs Chloe Takes In Run Are Inspired By Real Medications

Run uses drugs as narrative tools so effectively that viewers wonder if Ridocaine is real. In Run, the drugs Chloe takes are made up, but they are based on real medications. Trigoxin is based on the similarly named pill Digoxin, and the two are said to have similar effects. Digoxin is used to control the strength and efficiency of the heart, as well as maintain its rhythm, leading to better circulation. Since the real Trigoxin in the movie is supposed to have similar effects, it’s safe to say the drug is based on this one.

The Ridocaine drug in Run seems to be based on Lidocaine, but Lidocaine is used on both dogs and humans. Lidocaine is designed to be an anesthetic for bites, sunburns, and cuts, and can be prescribed to humans and dogs alike. However, the fact that they are in pill form makes them completely different, as Lidocaine usually comes in a jelly or ointment form. Either way, creative licensing needed to happen for the Hulu movie Run, but it is still interesting that Chloe’s pills are based on real drugs.

Does Diane In Run Suffer From Munchausen’s By Proxy?

Diane’s Mental Illness In Run Is Difficult To Determine

Chloe’s mom in Run might suffer from a psychological condition known as Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy, or sometimes simply Munchausen’s. The story of Run resembles countless news reports on Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy, in which a parent or guardian purposefully makes the person in their care sick, to receive monetary gain or attention. Run never overtly states that Chloe Sherman is a victim of a guardian struggling with Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy, but there are an incredible amount of similarities between Sarah Paulson’s character’s behavior and real-life instances of the condition.

One of the most famous cases is that of Gypsy Rose Blanchard, whose mother gaslighted her into believing that she was terminally ill, and at a very young age. After years of torment, she murdered her mother with the help of her boyfriend. Their entire story was retold through the Hulu original series The Act, but Run isn’t based on a specific case. In Run, Diane may have had genuine concerns for Chloe’s health, but her hypervigilance seems to have developed into Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy thanks to the Ridocaine Chloe takes.

It’s also clear by the ending of Run that Diane Sherman’s psychological break happened before Chloe entered her life, so the behaviors characteristic of Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy are also part of a deep and complex series of mental health problems. The way Diane treats Chloe in Run is abhorrent, and the damage it’s done to Chloe’s psyche is obvious from how much glee she gets from her vengeance (a moment that sets up a narrative for a hypothetical Run 2).

However, it’s also all a symptom of very obvious severe mental trauma, so pinning every one of her abusive behaviors on a single condition like Munchausen’s by Proxy would be both an oversimplification and unfair to both real caregivers struggling with the condition and the children whose lives are impacted by it. The biggest twist towards the end of the movie is that Chloe is not the premature baby shown in the beginning. Diane’s biological daughter died shortly after she was born, and she kidnapped Chloe to fill the void.

To keep her from losing another daughter, she finds ways to confine her to their home, such as Chloe’s Trigoxin, taking her to several different doctors to form a falsified story of her ailments. While some of her illnesses may have been made up, some of the false diagnoses became a self-fulfilling prophecy thanks to Diane’s torment.

Why Chloe Believes Her Mom In Run — Are Any Of Her Illnesses Real?

Diane’s Cover Story In The Run Movie Is Incredibly Convincing

Part of the reason Run is so terrifying is that Diane is a master manipulator. However, her lies are incredibly elaborate. Run does a great job of explaining how Diane fooled scores of medical and educational professionals into believing Chloe was genuinely sick. The scale of her lies and how they’re explained adds to the immersion of Run, rather than detracting from it by being poorly explained and seeming implausible. Diane’s lies were supported by the effect of the medication she was administering, but Chloe also believed her for so long because of some genuine health concerns.

In Run, Chloe is falsely diagnosed with 5 different illnesses, and her mother goes to extreme measures to manipulate her daughter into believing that she has them, like giving Chloe Ridocaine labeled as Trigoxin. The effects of the medication mirror the diseases Chloe Sherman falsely believes she has. However, Diane’s web of lies is supported by the psychosomatic effects of Chloe’s mental health being misrepresented as symptoms of the disease.

Chloe’s paralysis is directly linked to her mother, as in Run, she feeds her daughter Ridocaine which causes paralysis in the legs. However, the falsely-labeled Trigoxin is supported by Diane cleverly manipulating Chloe into believing that every health complaint is directly attributed to the reasons she needs the medication when many are caused by Diane’s treatment of her.

What The Trigoxin Pills Do To Chloe, And Which Symptoms Aren’t Caused By Ridocaine

Chloe Was Told She Had Four Diseases

The first illness Chloe thinks she has in the Run movie is asthma. Asthma is relatively common, yet can be life-threatening. It causes airways to become narrow, swell, and produce extra mucus. This leads to difficulty breathing, especially during exercise, and wheezing. Chloe is seen using an inhaler throughout Run, which can have adverse effects on those who don’t need it. Her asthma appears to be entirely real, but only because she uses an inhaler at will when she cannot breathe — it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Her difficulty breathing could also be panic attacks induced by the claustrophobic and abusive environment Diane creates in their home. Another illness Chloe believes she has is type 1 diabetes. The main difference between Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes is how the body deals with insulin. In Type 1, which can be developed at any point in life, the pancreas doesn’t make enough insulin, which leads to consistently high blood sugar, nerve damage, and even limb loss.

This is also linked to the paralysis Chloe believes she has in Run, which is, of course, revealed to be false. Chloe is not paralyzed, as the pharmacist reveals when she mentions the medication is lidocaine for their dog. The same muscle relaxers can be used to treat both dogs and humans.

However, in real life lidocaine blocks nerve signals to specific parts of the body, but there is little to no evidence that it directly affects a person’s legs — at least not in the targeted way seen in Run. However, there’s an explanation for exactly why Chloe’s legs are so weak. The end of Run reveals that Chloe isn’t paralyzed, but she is an ambulatory wheelchair user, which means that she can walk short distances. The prolonged use of the muscle relaxer likely caused her to lose some function in her legs.

Plus, such a long, forced sedentary lifestyle also would have meant significant natural muscular weakness, making it easy for Diane to convince Chloe of genuine paralysis (especially since Chloe has never walked, so it has no comparison). Ultimately, Chloe is not as sick as Diane makes her out to be. It is all manipulated to help her mother in keeping her captive. It’s shown in the ending of Run, that the consistent use of the Trigoxin medication, her gaslighting, and manipulation caused Chloe to become somewhat reliant on her inhaler, and lose partial use of her legs.

Thanks to her mother’s Munchausen complications, Chloe is also led to believe that she has arrhythmia. Arrhythmia is a heart condition most commonly known as an irregular heartbeat. This causes a slew of health issues when it comes to physical activity. Hemochromatosis is the fourth falsely diagnosed illness Chloe has. Hereditary hemochromatosis means that the body absorbs too much iron from food.

Too much iron in the bloodstream can lead to other complications like liver disease, heart problems, and diabetes. However, as with her other health conditions in Run, these symptoms are all a combination of her anxiety, the lifestyle Diane has forced on her, and the Trigoxin/Ridocaine she takes.

Regardless Of Its Accuracy, Run Was A Critical Hit

Critics & Audiences Praised The Movie

Most viewers, both critics and fans, praised Run, and few people cared whether the medical afflictions, medication, or anything else was accurate to real-world conditions. Looking at its Rotten Tomatoes scores, Run has an 89% fresh rating from critics, which means it was Certified Fresh, and a 74% Popcornmeter score. The acting is what pushed it high, with one reviewer writing, “Run is propelled along by two stellar performances that greatly sell the unease and hopelessness presented by the films premise.”

Probably the most praise went to Run casting an actor with a disability in the role of Chloe, having someone who uses a wheelchair in real life to play the role in the film. Peter Debruge of Variety wrote:

“Kiera Allen, who plays Chloe, represents a genuine discovery: funny, charismatic and in many ways more relatable than the Clearasil-commercial models who populate most teen flicks… Once again, perceived limitations become opportunities for more creative solutions, and differences disappear unless audiences decide to obsess over them.”

There were also top critic reviews that specifically pointed out how inaccurate the story was from real life, but still managed to give it a positive review. Sara Stewart from Book and Film Globe wrote that Run has way too many questions about why Chloe couldn’t get answers without putting her life in danger. However, “I highly recommend checking it out. As long as you don’t feel the need, like Chloe, to ask too many pesky questions.“