if you've been bitten by a brown recluse
spider the first thing i can tell you
keep the spider hi i'm anne chappelle
i'm a board-certified toxicologist and
this is poison support
[Music]
jehovah's witness jehovah's thickness
asks so can you really poison people by
putting eye drops in their food i'm
asking for a friend actually you can
there have been several high-profile
cases where a spouse has been accused of
murder for putting visine drops into
their partners beverages and food the
active ingredient in visine causes your
blood vessels to constrict it works
great on your eyes getting the red out
the problem is that when you ingest it
and you ingest enough of it it can cause
your other blood vessels to also
constrict and when those constrict you
can cut off blood supply to different
parts of your body and have some overt
toxicity it's been shown that only a
quarter teaspoon
ingested by a child can actually cause
significant toxicity so you need to be
very careful in where you keep your
visine or other similar eye drops next
up we have a question from benjamin sano
poison gas how does that work well first
you go to taco bell
just kidding certain poison gases when
you breathe them in they immediately
destroy the lining of your lung and so
if you have don't have a good lung
lining well then you really can't
oxygenate your blood and then you can
die poison gases can also work by
interacting with the cells within your
body and stop them from being able to
produce energy that's a really big deal
when it comes to your heart and your
brain one of the most common poisonous
gases is actually carbon monoxide carbon
monoxide poisoning often manifests as
sleepiness and unfortunately carbon
monoxide is tasteless odorless
and so you often won't be able to tell
if you've been exposed to carbon
monoxide that's why those carbon
monoxide detectors that you can get at
your local big box store are so
important from tatum flynn can you get
lead poisoning from stabbing yourself
really hard with a sharp pencil asking
for an idiot no
no you can't no way never know how you
know why pencils don't contain lead
pencils actually contain a mix of
graphite and clay which is considered
non-toxic we have a question now from
brendan fly eagles fly did you know that
toothpaste can kill you because it's a
poison if you eat the whole bottle at
once it even says use more for brushing
than eating yes
why yes i did fluoride when brushed on
the teeth helps protect the enamel and
so it's very good for your teeth but
again it's not very good to ingest
because the fluoride is a lot like
calcium so if you have too much fluoride
in your body it displaces the calcium
why is that important calcium is in your
bones so your bones aren't as strong as
well as calcium is important in a number
of different metabolic reactions that
keep your body healthy if you did it
didn't eat an entire thing of toothpaste
that's something you really should call
poison control about that fluoride in
your body could escalate to the point
where you have seizures convulsions
death so please take it seriously
don't eat your toothpaste please spit we
have a question from emily can you die
of food poisoning
absolutely you can die of food poisoning
food poisoning is actually one of the
most common poisonings that happens in
the united states according to the
centers for disease control one in six
americans suffer from some form of food
poisoning every year 128 000 americans
end up going to the hospital for food
poisoning and about 3 000 people die
every year of food poisoning the biggest
problem with food poisoning is
dehydration if you have several days of
diarrhea you really need to make sure
that you stay hydrated sometimes food
poisoning can be very difficult to
diagnose because you end up getting a
delay between when you actually ate the
food and actually when you became ill
usually it is a delay of 6 to 12 hours
for that toxin to start acting on your
intestines and in your body to produce
adverse health effects wife of chadwick
asks can you overdose on vitamins
because these gummies are yummy and i
keep popping them yes you can however
there is not always an adverse effect
many of the gummy vitamins are
water-soluble vitamins which means that
they don't get built up in your system
so if you've ever taken too many gummies
or vitamins and you've got kind of
bright colored pea
well you've it overdosed just a bit the
problem is when you end up overdosing on
some of these fat soluble vitamins such
as vitamin d vitamin e some of the bees
as well those like to sequester into
your fat and so they're harder to get
rid of out of your body iron supplements
can be also formulated into gummy
vitamins and those are actually very
dangerous especially for children to
have an iron overdose and so in all of
these cases if you suspect that there is
unintended ingestion of these kinds of
vitamins it's important to run it by
your poison control center especially if
it's a child so this one is from david
acosta yo i never had to call poison
control at this point in my life how
does it work
is there like a code system press 1 for
rat poison press 2 for cyanide do i need
a subscription is there a free trial you
know what never mind well it's really
important that you know that the first
step in suspected poisoning is actually
calling poison control that's
1-800-222-1222 it's a national toll-free
number staffed 24-7 now you may think
that there's sometimes when you need to
call 9-1-1 or should i call poison
control well if the person is having an
extreme medical emergency right in front
of you
downline one one if you're not sure
still call 911 especially if they're a
child and then call poison control to
follow up leonel asks a very important
question wait wait wait how do poison
antidotes work so there's a number of
different kinds of antidotes first of
all there's the kind that actually just
trap or absorb the chemical there's some
that actually go after and neutralize
the chemical itself those are things
like the antivenoms another one is that
it actually inhibits the chemical
at the site of the organ or toxicity
here is a good example of an antidote
for a chemical overdose
opiates you get too much oxycodone in
your body and they give you the naloxone
spray that actually gets into your body
and that displaces the oxycodone from
the sites where it activates that's why
you have to see such an immediate
reversal after a naloxone dose poison
control and regional trauma centers
often have anti-venoms for the things
that are local to that particular area
but if you happen to be in northern
ontario where there are no rattlesnakes
there's probably no anti-venom so be
careful where you decide to get fit ives
asks how do we measure toxicity one of
the most common ways to measure toxicity
is a test called an
ld50 test lethal dose
50. it means you give a dose to an
animal and you find out what the dose is
that kills 50
of those animals i know that sounds
pretty barbaric but it is a way to
analyze and figure out what the inherent
toxicity of that substance happens to be
one raised brow asks did you know that
activated charcoal can absorb poison
it's actually been used for hundreds and
hundreds of years to absorb different
toxicants activated charcoal works by
actually physically binding that
substance to itself in the digestive
tract and traps it so that it is
eliminated through either the feces or
if it is flushed out of the stomach one
of the things they like about activated
charcoal is that it acts on all kinds of
different poisons and toxicants so you
don't necessarily have to know what the
person was exposed to to be able to use
it and potentially help eliminate any of
these adverse reactions if you've
already got something in your body
activated charcoal isn't going to pull
that toxicate out of your cells and out
of your body the activated charcoal is
really going to focus on something that
is in your intestinal tract your gi
tract but it's really not meant to
cleanse any other part of your body
anguin
anyone know what to do if you feel like
you've been poisoned 24 7 go to the
doctor
if you feel awful for several days or
several weeks keep a diary of some of
your symptoms what have you been eating
where have you been going what does your
work environment like that way you're
able to give the doctor or nurse
practitioner something to go on here's a
question from carrie syndrome if you
ever accidentally swallow a poison don't
make yourself throw up drink as much
water or milk as you can i just save
your life
not necessarily carrie chemical agents
have different hazardous properties for
example bleach is a very caustic
agent which means it can burn you if you
drank milk or water you would think that
that might dilute what you're having but
not necessarily sometimes the water or
the milk can make it worse in addition
if that makes you feel worse and you
accidentally throw up there's a
condition called aspiration pneumonitis
which is essentially you inhale your
vomit imagine how much worse it is if
you inhaled vomit that was full of
bleach that would also damage your lungs
so don't just assume that water or milk
is the appropriate treatment for an
overdose or exposure to any kind of
poison should a retired says hey
toxicology twitter screaming mind ryan
marino what's the dapzone dose for a
brown recluse bite a brown recluse
spider is a kind of spider that causes
in some cases a
necrotizing wound that means all of the
skin cells are dying if you've been
bitten by a brown recluse spider the
first thing i can tell you keep the
spider
even if you smash it put it into a
little jar so that if you get some kind
of
necrotizing wound it's like a gross
painful
spot you can tell the doctor so that
they can treat you appropriately the
question was for this one is dapsone
treatment dapzone is an antibiotic often
given to leprosy patients so you might
think is that really appropriate for a
brown recluse spider bite there's a
number of research papers that have
compared treatment for brown recluse
spider bites between the different
standard of care the antibiotics and
such with adding dapsone and the
evidence is mixed i have a question here
from anna seven what the is syrup
of ipac syrup of ipac is a
syrup that is made from the dried root
of a south american
plant it is
used in the emergency room to make you
vomit that's what it does if you're
going to use serp epicac you really
should call poison control first to make
sure that you should be up chucking what
you ingested because sometimes if things
are really caustic corrosive
things like battery acid
drano bleach that can cause more damage
on the way back up the problem with serp
of ipac also is that it has been abused
for many years by people that didn't
know how to make themselves throw up but
they wanted to lose weight one of the
most famous deaths related to serb of
ipac was actually karen carpenter in
1983
she had severe anorexia and kept taking
serb of epicact to make her vomit over
time serp of ipac damaged her heart
so it caused her to have a heart attack
and die a question from andrew king
poinsettia cupcakes but know your logs
wait aren't poinsettias poisonous that
is actually a bit of a myth if you eat a
significant number of poinsettia leaves
you might become a little nauseous
or you might be able to reach
potentially toxic dose a child weighing
50 pounds has to eat 500 poinsettia
leaves to actually reach a dose that
would result in significant toxicity zoe
is just kitten around i want to at the
very least learn how to tell a poison
mushroom apart from an edible one here
is a really easy way to tell them apart
if it's at a grocery store you can eat
it you need to be very careful about
foraging for your own mushrooms because
it is very difficult to tell a poisonous
mushroom apart from an edible mushroom
because there's only about 100 poisonous
mushrooms out of all the mushrooms that
are out there what are the chances that
you actually picked a poisonous one do
you really want to find out every year
there are about 6 000 mushroom
poisonings reported to the cdc half of
those are from ingestions from children
so please help educate your children not
to eat random mushrooms in your backyard
all right that's all the questions i had
a really good time today and i hope we
can do it again sometime
you