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Poisoning first aid
Sometimes there are cases of ingested or inhaled poison in family or friends. What to do is important because first aid is very important.
Suspect poisoning if:
You see signs or symptoms of nausea and vomiting; pain; breathing difficulty; confusion or convulsions; burns or redness around mouth; chemical smell from cloths or breath; abnormal discoloration of skin, clothes, or rug/sheets; or empty medicine bottles or scattered pills.
Rule no.1:
Always call the emergency medical service number of your area. Keep the emergency poison control centre contact number among the other emergency numbers.
Rule no.2:
Never try to treat poisoning by your own self and at home. Always ask the poison control what to do and is there an antidote for it?
Do not give ipecac:
Ipecac syrup or any other thing to induce vomiting is not strongly discouraged unless told by a medical professional to do so. Current first line treatment of many ingested poisons is activated charcoal which is fast and effective.
What next?
While waiting for the emergency medical team to arrive, there are a few things the attendant can do.
• If the poison is inhaled, as fumes such as carbon mono-oxide, get the patient into fresh air immediately so that the lungs can get oxygen.
• Remove the clothes if the fuming chemical is still on them. Wash the mouth, skin and eyes if any poison is still there.
• Check the mouth and remove anything which is still remaining in there.
• If the person has ingested a house-hold cleaning chemical then check the label and follow its instructions for poisoning.
• Follow the poison control center’s advice and treatment directions given.
• Note the time of poisoning and the early and later symptoms. Take the poison container with you to the hospital if possible.
Medical treatment:
This is brief over view of what the doctors will do for a poisoning case. Treatment depends upon the type of poisoning, time since poisoning occurred, signs and symptoms.
1. Elimination of poison: It may be done by ingestion of activated charcoal (super absorbed of many poisons) or by whole gut irrigation by drinking a fluid called Golytely. Rarely, vomiting may be induced. Elimination technique is limited by time and type of poison.
2. Antidote: It may either prevent the poison from working or it may reverse the effects of poisons. There is another set of chemicals which bind the poison once it has reached the blood stream, thus eliminate it. Sometimes there is no antidote required or available.
3. General supportive treatment: This may either be the sole treatment module, or may be an adjunct to specific antidote treatment. It is the treatment according to symptom e.g. sedation for hallucination and agitation; anti-convulsants for convulsions, artificial ventilator for breathing problems; and fluid and electrolyte replacement etc
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