Entry bubble Poison Help: Just a Phone Call Away

By: Stephanie | March 16, 2009 | Category: Health

skull and crossbones, with the word Poison Did you know that unintentional poisoning causes more deaths than car accidents and house fires in the United States? And that the death rate from poisoning has been rising in this country in recent years?

This is National Poison Prevention Week—and an important part of poison prevention can be found in a toll free phone call to Poison Help, a free service of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that’s available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

Poison Help—1-800-222-1222—automatically forwards you to a poison control center in your area, where you can talk with an expert in poison emergencies.

Call Poison Help, for example, if you took a medicine incorrectly, used a strong cleaning product without gloves, ate food that was left out too long, or were bitten by a spider.

Also call if you think your child swallowed a poison such as a cosmetic or personal care product, a cleaning substance, or a part of a plant.

Don’t wait for signs of poisoning, the experts warn—they’ll help with any possible poisoning, even if you aren’t sure it’s occurred. They say that often your problem can be solved on the phone. (If a victim isn’t breathing, call 911 first.) The poison expert also might call back to check on you.

If you need a doctor or ambulance, the poison expert will tell you right away, and he or she may also call your local hospital to give treatment information ahead of your arrival.

Poison Help recommends that you keep its number near your phone (call the number to receive free magnets), or enter the number into speed dial. It also offers tips at its website on preventing poisoning, and how to help in a poisoning emergency.

Have you ever had a poisoning emergency, or called Poison Help?

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Entry bubble I Have Poison Ivy!

By: Joanne | July 01, 2008 | Category: Health

poison ivy My garden was, ahem, a wee bit overgrown, so I spent the whole weekend on my hands and knees weeding. Apparently while I was ripping out weeds with wild abandon, I came in contact with some poison ivy and now I’ve got an itchy, itchy poison ivy rash on my wrists, just at my glove line.

There’s a funny thing about poison ivy and me. Poison ivy and ragweed are the only things in this world to which I’m allergic. I have a pretty good idea about what ragweed looks like, but it doesn’t really matter – you don’t have to be in direct contact with it for it to get to you. But for some reason I’ve got a mental block about poison ivy. I can identify any number of cute little wild flowers that grow around here, but I never see the one thing out there that will surely give me a miserable rash. Go figure.

Poison ivy rashes are caused by oil that the plant produces, called urushiol. Typically you have a reaction after direct contact with the plant, but sometimes the oil can get on your pet and you can pick it up when you touch your pet (this happened to me once) or it can even be carried on the wind if someone is burning the plant. If you like to be outdoors in the summer, do your best to protect yourself. Your best defense is to recognize the plant and try to avoid it. If you do come in contact with the plant, try to wash the oil off your skin with soap and water. And remember, for any particularly nasty rash, you should consult your doctor. I had to do that for my first case of poison ivy, which covered my legs in red bumps and made me insanely itchy!

I hope that writing this post helps me (and you) remember what poison ivy looks like so we can avoid it next time we’re around it. Leaves of three, let them be. Leaves of three, let them be. Leaves of three, let them be. This will be my summertime mantra.

Image credit: Jennifer Anderson @ USDA-NRCS PLANTS Database

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Entry bubble Poison!

By: Nancy | May 15, 2008 | Category: Health

I wandered into the house one day at the age of three, announcing to my mom that I'd just eaten a bud from one of the plants in her garden. The stunt earned me an ambulance ride to the hospital with my mom and a Raggedy Andy doll from my dad—a bribe to get me to take the medicine that was going to make me "return" the flower bud. To my horror and to everyone else's relief, it worked.

Now, who knows why I did that? I didn't even like vegetables and there I was, chowing down on touch-me-nots in the flower bed. Kids and pets can be way more inquisitive about stuff that's not good for them than we might anticipate. Plan now so you'll know what to do later in a poisoning emergency.

mr yuck anti poisoning symbol

Start by printing out this chart to help you in the first moments after there's been a poisoning. I just hung up a copy here at Gov Gab headquarters.

If someone's unconscious or not breathing after being exposed to poison, call 911. If they've swallowed something, call the American Association of Poison Control Centers at 1 (800) 222-1222 before doing anything else. And if they've gotten something in their eyes or on their skin, get them started flushing the area with running water before you call. This toll-free number connects you directly to someone at your local poison control center where they can talk you through what to do next.

We could all probably rattle off the ways to prevent poisoning, from reading the directions on packaging to keeping pesticides, medications, cleaners and other poisons out of kids' and pets' reach. But in the busyness of daily life, it's easy to forget to close a cabinet door all the way or to immediately put away a bottle of cleaner. Even as adults, it's easy for us to mix up medicine bottles, tubes of gel and bottles of liquid when we're in a hurry or distracted or when the lights are dim and we don't have our glasses on.

Consider looking around your house tonight to see what medications, cleaners and other non-edibles need to be moved up out of reach or labeled better to keep your family safe from accidental poisoning.

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