Hand Sanitizer

What is hand sanitizer?

Hand sanitizer, such as Purell and Bath & Body Works are products for cleaning your hands when you don’t have soap and water. They kill germs, like viruses and bacteria, help to prevent the spread of colds and flu. Some brands of hand sanitizer use a form of alcohol to kill germs, while others use different chemicals.  Young children sometimes swallow hand sanitizer by getting into the bottle or licking it off their hands. Many of the new products come in different scents that are appealing to small children to try to taste because of the smell. Some people, especially teens, drink hand sanitizer on purpose for the alcohol. They can often find the instructions online for “distilling” the alcohol.

Dangers of hand sanitizers

If used correctly hand sanitizers are a safe method for preventing the spread of germs. Someone who swallows a lot of hand sanitizer with alcohol in it may show signs of being drunk, have trouble walking and talking. However, hand sanitizer taste bad and irritates the mouth, which keeps most people from drinking a harmful amount. Getting hand sanitizer in your eyes can also be painful.

What to do if someone may be poisoned by hand sanitizer

Call your local Poison Control Center if you have questions about hand sanitizer, whether someone has swallowed some, splashed in the eyes with, or if you just want information, 1-800-222-1222

If someone has swallowed hand sanitizer, we can help you figure out how much the person drank, what symptoms you may see and how to treat them. If someone gets hand sanitizer in their eyes, we will help your figure out if they need to flush their eyes and can tell you how to do it the right away.

Methods to prevent hand sanitizer poisoning

·         Use alcohol-free sanitizer when you can

·         Keep hand sanitizer out of reach of children

·         Keep hand sanitizer in the original container

·         Keep an eye on children when they use hand sanitizer

Carbon Monoxide

What is carbon monoxide?

Carbon monoxide or CO is a harmful gas that you cannot see or smell. Carbon monoxide is made when fuels like wood, oil and coal are burned.

You can breathe in carbon monoxide if your appliances or equipment are broken, or if you use them in the wrong way. Some types of equipment that make carbon monoxide are:

§  Fireplaces

§  Furnaces

§  Generators

§  Grills

§  Space heaters

§  Hot water heaters

What are the symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning?

You can breathe in carbon monoxide and not even know it. You might feel like you have the flu. You may:

§  Have a headache

§  Feel tired

§  Have trouble breathing

§  Feel sick to your stomach or throw up

A carbon monoxide alarm will let you know if you have too much in your home.

If you breathe in a lot of carbon monoxide, you can get very sick. When you breathe in carbon monoxide, your brain and your heart don’t get enough air. You could:

§  Have a heart attack

§  Have trouble thinking

§  Go into a coma or even die

What can you do?

If you think you have breathed in carbon monoxide:

§  Get to fresh air right away

§  Call 911 or your local fire department

§  Call the poison center at 1-800-222-1222

To prevent carbon monoxide poisoning:

§  Put carbon monoxide alarms in your home:

§  Place alarms near bedrooms. Place an alarm on every floor of your home.

§  Read the directions that come with the alarm. They will tell you where to put the alarm, how to use it and how often to check the batteries.

§  Put batteries in all your alarms. If the power goes out, plug-in alarms will not work without batteries.

§  Have a professional set up your furnace, hot water heater or stove. Make an appointment to have a professional check on the furnace once a year.

§  Do not leave your car running in a garage, even with the garage door open.

§  Use outdoor equipment outside, away from windows and doors. Do not use generators, grills, or gas-powered tools indoors or near windows or doors.

§  Use generators safely:

§  Only use your generator outside.

§  Put the generator more than 15 feet away from your house and your neighbors’ houses.

§  Point the exhaust away from houses.

§  To prevent a fire, have an electrician help you choose and set up your generator.

Call local Poison Control Center 1-800-222-1222

1-800-222-1222

In the United States every 15 seconds a Poison Control Centers receives a call. The interesting factor is more than half the phone calls are made by an adult taking care of the child, when the child ingests or is exposed to a poisonous substance. The substances can include medicine, household chemical, and pesticides. The Center for Disease Control reports there is approximately 2 million poison exposures in the United States every year, more than 57% of the exposures are children under the age of 6. Approximately 30 children die every year related to accidentally poisonings. For children the most common exposure of household products includes; cleaning substances, medications, cosmetics, personal care products, foreign body ingestion  and plants. A staggering statistic of the majority of accidental poisonings is 90 percent occur in the home.

Children under the age of 6 are very curious and like to explore. It only takes a moment for a small child to find and swallow a poisonous substance. Distractions such as the telephone, doorbell, or cooking something on the stove is more than enough time for a little one to find something to get into. The Poison Control Center is the 9-1-1 for poison emergencies. The national line is toll-free and automatically routes the call to the local Poison Control Center, 1-800-222-1222. The center is staffed 24 hours a day, seven days a week with medical professionals; Registered Nurses, Pharmacists, Physicians, and Poison Information Specialists. It is recommended having the 1-800-222-1222 number posted by the home phone (landline) and saved as a favorite in an individual’s cell phone.

Helpful information to have when calling the Poison Control Center:

• Age of the victim
• Weight of the victim
• Existing health conditions or problems
• Substance or product involved, and the type of exposure-swallowed, inhaled, skin contact, or splashed in eyes. You may be asked to read the label exactly to help provide the necessary treatment recommendations.
• Time the exposure occurred
• Any type of first aid given- washed face, flushed eyes with water. The Poison Control Center does not recommend inducing vomiting; it can make the situation worse.
• Any symptoms the victim may have; vomiting, choking, irritation to skin or eyes
• The location and which hospital is nearest

Not all products are labeled correctly to deal with suspected poisonings. An example may be ingestion of dish soap and the recommendation is to drink several glasses of water. Depending on the size of the person ingesting this product can change the recommendations. Small children do not do well drinking several glasses of water at once and may vomit. Some products do not have warning labels; this does not mean the product is safe for ingestion.  Looking up product information on the internet is not always reliable and providing the correct information, an individual’s best opportunity is to call the Poison Control Center.

Button batteries, harmful for small children, elderly, and pets

Have you ever noticed the amount of toys or products that use those small harmless looking button batteries? Those flat silver discs used in toys like remote control cars, musical greeting cards, bathroom scales, watches, flameless candles and many other types of home electronics. Some are lithium batteries in which pose the greatest potential for harm. There is an average of 3,500 button battery ingestions reported annually to Poison Control Centers. Swallowing batteries is not a new trend for children, elderly adults, or pets to ingest. The concern is over the years is the development of stronger, larger lithium cell batteries, increases the risk of potential severe complications to the individual following the ingestion. Most parents and adults are unaware of the potential for danger from these little items.

Deaths from battery ingestions are rare, per the poison center information there were 10 documented deaths in the past 6 years. Small children, elderly adults, and pets may view the battery as candy, medication, or food. The greatest concern is if the battery gets lodged in the esophagus. The battery has low voltage current that can be completed if it comes in contact with the right environment (a throat or esophagus), and cause severe damage; burns, erosions. One of the physicians from the Journal of Pediatrics did a test, he uses a hot dog and inserted a button battery in it to get an idea how it would react. The hot dog casing is similar to the esophagus of a human; the battery cooked the hot dog.

Possible complications from an ingestion of the battery, is the risk of getting lodged in the vocal cords or esophagus. This can cause serious injury to the vocal cords and digestive tract. Depending on the size of the battery the greater the risk, the larger the battery increase chance for serious injuries. The button battery has popular appeal and the manufacturing industry has shifted towards using this more frequently. Federal safety rules require toys that use the batteries to have a battery compartment that requires the use of screws as a deterrent for access to children. Unfortunately there are not such regulations or rules for devices intended for adult use, bathroom scales, watches, greeting cards, flameless candles or other electronic devices.

Children and pets will find the battery loose and ingest it without an adult even being aware. The common age of ingestion in children is 6. Elderly adults can also be at risk for ingestion of a button battery, thinking its medication when in fact it may be a hearing aid battery. There is a 2 hour window following battery ingestion before symptoms may be observed before complications can occur. Once burning occurs the damage may continue even when the battery has been removed. A majority of the time the ingestions are not witnessed. Children have been able to breathe with a disc battery in the airway; it is not an obvious ingestion and the child will not appear in distress. Children or pets may present with symptoms that are nonspecific; coughing, wheezing, vomiting, drooling, and refusing to eat are possible symptoms. This can be diagnosed as something else such as stomach flu or pneumonia. Information for handling ingestion in children, elderly, and pets is similar.

Tips for battery safety

• Search your home, and any place a child has potential to go for any device or gadget that may use disc lithium batteries
• Secure disc lithium battery controlled devices out of sight and reach of small children. Keep loose batteries locked up or in a safe area.
• Pass the information on to family members, babysitters, friends, and caregivers these important tips.

What to do is a disc battery has been ingested

• Go to a local emergency room immediately.  Inform health care providers of your concern that your child may have ingested a disc battery; if possible provide the identification number found on the battery package.
• Do not let the child eat or drink anything until a chest x-ray is completed to determine if a battery is present.
• Do not induce vomiting

For more information contact:

• National Battery Ingestion Hotline at 202-625-3333
• Poison Control Center 1-800-222-1222

Laundry Detergent Pods- a new danger

The newest trend for washing clothes is a detergent “pod”. All the big named manufactures of laundry detergent are developing “Pods”. The convenience and attractiveness of the product is because it is pre-measured, easy to handle, no spills, and the packaging dissolves in the wash to make the task of laundry easier. Unfortunately these convenient pods present a major problem, they are super attractive to small children, the bright colored packet looks like candy and the container looks like a candy jar. The child can view the pod as a toy to be played with or squeezed. The pods can cause a potential risk for the small child that was not foreseen in the process.

Children biting into the detergent pod develop severe vomiting; some children have become unconscious and ended up in the intensive care units. This is not always the case, but the risk is there. The pods contain a concentrated laundry detergent that is very irritated to the eyes, skin, mouth, and throat. Moisture causes the “pod” casing to dissolve, releasing the ingredients into the mouth. The pod breaks and splashes the child in the eye can cause severe eye irritation. The poison control centers have received numerous calls on exposures to these products. Some of the symptoms can be severe requiring hospitalization. Fortunately no children have died from the exposure.

The manufacturers are attempting to make the containers safer for this product safer by adding a safety latch. The recommendation is to keep the product out of reach of children. The responsibility of safe handling and storage falls on the adults in the child’s home as the method of injury prevention.

Prevention:

• Store the container out of reach children
• Make sure the container is closed
• Do not allow children to handle the “pods”
• Educate the child this is not candy or a toy; it is poison

What to do if a child is exposed:

Ingestion:

• Remove the product from the child’s mouth
• Wipe out the child’s mouth with a wet wash cloth
• Wash the child’s face and hands
• Call the poison control center immediately

Eye exposure:

• Rinse the eye gently with luke-warm water for 15 minutes
• Call the poison control center

Medication Safety-Grandparent's Homes

The average number of poisonings occurring in children is accidental. In general, all adults have some form of over –the –counter medication in their homes. The ratio of prescription drugs in the home is 79% of parents and 85% of grandparents. Over one-third of the accidental poisonings involve children involve getting into their grandparents mediation. Unfortunately, older adults are most likely to have health issues, requiring the need for prescription and over-the-counter medications. A majority of these medications will be stored in open sight and easy access for small children through the use of none child-resistance containers.  The general goal for older adults taking medication is to have easy access as a reminder to take their medication. Pill minders are handy tools to help people to remember to take their medication. But unfortunately this is easy access to a small child.

Health issues concerns in older adults cannot be corrected in addition to the need for medications for treatment. The challenge is providing education to the parents and grandparents on need for safe storage and inaccessibility to small children. Making the environment safe for the children is the main objective. Child-resistance packaging is a method used as deterring the small child. Storage and location is the another important contributing to child safety. Understandably some adults have arthritis or other conditions making it difficult to open the containers. This is the reason may choose to have easy to open medication containers. If this is the case it is important to know the container is closed and stored in a safe location. There is pill-minder boxes in which have child resistance packaging might be a preferable choice over easy to open containers. Small children are explorers and have a tendency to find everything a parent or grandparent wishes they wouldn't.

Just because something mentions it is child resistance does not mean it is child proof. Small children are geniuses when it comes to the containers and can figure out after several attempts how to get into the package. The use of child resistance products serves as a step in deterring children, it is the adult’s responsibility to limit the access and promote safety. Medication storage is another aspect of the battle in prevention of accidental poisoning. Medication needs to be kept out of reach of children, prescription and over-the-counter.  Grandparents and older adults should not leave the medication on the bathroom sink, bedside table, kitchen table, or counter. Children are curious and will explore these areas, how many times have you noticed your child going for something in plain sight. Suggestions for storage could include a lockbox, top of the refrigerator, or cupboard a child does not have access to.  Grandparents should also be careful with medications stored in their purses. Children are always looking for something good, and most of the time grandma has gum or some other treat in her purse. Another concern is medication left in suitcases when visiting a relative; this provides another easy access point for children. Older grandchildren factor in the equation to when it comes to medication storage and accessibility. Grandparents may be accidental suppliers for children looking to experiment with medication (pain killers).

Safety:

• Store medications out of reach from children
• Child-resistant containers
• Store medication in original containers, recycle or dispose of old one (This allows for a pill count)
• Grandparents and parents look over the area before leaving children unsupervised, make sure all medication is out of reach and no medication is on the floor.

What to do is a child ingests a medication

• Is the child okay? Choking? Breathing? If there is problem call 911.
• Do not induce vomiting. (This is no longer recommend along with the use of ipecac syrup)
• Take the child and the medication to the phone
• Take a deep breath, Call Poison Control Center, 1-800-222-1222 for help, the specialist may save you and your loved one an unnecessary trip to the Emergency room.
• Answer all the questions the specialists (nurse, pharmacist, MD) ask, this helps determine the recommendations for treatment.

Types of ingestions from calls at grandparents homes

• Over the counter medications; acetaminophen (Tylenol), aspirin, vitamins
• Prescription medications; Pain medication (Morphine, Vicodin), Blood pressure medications (Ace-inhibitors-Lisnopril, captopril; beta-blockers-metoprolol, atenolol; calcium channel blockers-amlodipine, isradipine), Diabetic medication (sulfonylureas- Glucotrol, Micronase; Biguanides-Metformin)

Medications all have serious potential to harm a small child depending on the dosage and the amount ingested. Child safety is always a major concern, the best method is education and prevention.

Silica Gel, Poisonous or Not?

Did you ever wonder what was in those little packets found in new purses, shoe boxes, and other new items? The warnings on the packet are enough to scare anyone; “Do not eat”, “Throw away”. Small children are curious and will put anything in their mouths as they explore their environment, it is how they learn. When my daughter was a toddler these “little packets” were my worst nightmare, the packets were in everything I purchased. I would find one or numerous packets in a new item I had purchased; I would automatically dispose of the packet. As far as I was concerned this product contained some toxic substance made of silicone that would cause immediate death to my child. I would think what are the manufactures thinking? People purchasing these items do not have any small children or health concerns being exposed to this toxic substance. Imagine myself as a new mom carrying these packets with tweezers to the trash as if the item was “red hot or radioactive”; turns out my fears were over played and rather comical at times.

My burning thought was “What is silica gel and why does the package have all the warnings?” Working in the health care, I learned something so simple and how over reactive I was. There are numerous calls to health care providers and poison control centers about ingestions of silica gel packets every day, even trips to the emergency room. A key concept that is missing is the need for education on what silica gel is and how it would be beneficial to everyone know what it is and why the warnings.

What is silica gel? 

Silica gel is a drying agent, which is meant to reduce the humidity in an enclosed space. Silica gel is also known as desiccant packet and is used to preserve the quality of the object inside the packaging. Without these desiccant packets the item could be damaged by humidity or the presence of moisture. The use of silica gel packets started in World War II to keep penicillin dry as it was shipped from location to location in all extremes of weather.  Current uses for silica gel packs can be found in boxes of new shoes, purses, medication bottles, electronics, or other items shipped. The silica gel if made from a form that is similar to sand, silicic acid. Silica gel is used to absorb the moisture in the product to prevent damage to the item in the shipping process.

Silica gel is non-toxic substance that is not poisonous if eaten.

The warnings are on the package mention to “do not eat” for two reasons, 1) it is not a form of food, and 2) it is a choking hazard. The small packet or gels can potentially block the airway of a small child or animal as a choking hazard. The warning mentioning to “throw away” serves as a reminder there is potential for harm to if a small child or animal has access to the product.

Helpful tips for safety with silica gel packets

·         When purchasing a new item such as shoes, purse, or medication remember to look and dispose of silica gel package immediately.

·         Depending on the item purchased there may be multiple packets of silica gel depending on the size of the item.

·         The easiest method to dispose silica gel pack is to break open or cut prior to discarding the packet, thus eliminating the choking hazard.

·         If ingested make sure the child or animal is not choking, provide with a glass of water to drink to clear the particles. Call your local poison control center immediately.

Manufactures are attempting to change the packaging of silica gel packets to reduce the choking hazard.

If you have questions or need further information contact your local poison control center

 1-800-222-1222

Poison danger in the home.

Dangers of accidental poisoning in the home, school, or work is one of the greatest risks for children, pets, or other loved ones. The risk of getting injured increases with the risk of access to the products in the environment, no area is completely child proof. Children have the greatest risks for unintentional poisoning in the home, they are smaller, faster, curious, and more susceptible to the toxins in their home or elsewhere. Children have the natural curiosity and desire to explore increase the potential for harm depending on the environment. A small child learning to climb on chairs demonstrates the risk of exposure to poisons on the counter, cupboards, or closets.

What types of poison do children have a tendency to get into? Most common include household and personal care products, medicine, vitamins, and plants. Other concerns can include lead, carbon monoxide, and other environmental factors. The risk of poisoning to the child depends on the packaging, accessibility, availability, formulation, and the toxicity to the product. The risk of injury decreases with parent awareness, education for prevention and safety, and appropriate interventions by contacting the poison control centers and health providers. The risk of injury decreases with child-resistant packaging, product reformation, and increased parent awareness are key factors for reducing the risk of exposure. 

Changes in health care require the need for prevention to reduce the number of unnecessary trips to the emergency room, urgent care, or health care provider. Health care should focus prevention, illness visits, well child visits, yearly physicals and what can be done to promote the health of the individual. Not everyone is fortunate to have insurance to meet these needs, that is why valuable resources such as the Poison Control Center, Ask a Nurse, and Health Coach can help decrease health care expenses. A visit to the emergency room can cause financial hardship on an individual and family

This blog will focus on providing information and direction on information for prevention of accidental poisoning and resources to parents, health care provider, or other individuals with questions. 

Call your local poison control center- 1-800-222-1222, the national hot line number, it will connect the you directly to your local poison control center based on your area code.

Ask for a free information kit (Lit Kit), magnet, stickers, and informative brochures (poison prevention, toxic plants)

One free tidbit- the poison control center provides free information at no charge to your insurance, the information collected is confidential, and used to help make products safer for our children.