Who knew? (PSA for parents of young kids)

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

27 month old getting into and tasting a little Vicks Vapor Rub+
Reading warning on jar label+
call poison control to be on the safe side=

Poison Control lady freaks the HELL out.

Who knew? This is stuff that goes near their mouth anyway.

But apparently a little dab’ll do ya, two fingerfuls eaten will/can cause seizures, brain damage, possible death.

So there you go.

But he’s fine, he’s fine.

Well, he was getting a little exasperated with my every-minute-interrogation of;
“Honey sweetie do you feel OK does anything hurt bubbelah are you happy punkin you OK you OK?”
to which he’d giggle, practically roll his eyes, and reply,
“Yeh, Sa-eee (he often calls me Sally instead of Mommy 'cause he’s cheeky that way), I FINE!”

But other than that, OK.

Just thought I’d throw that out there as an FYI. It woulda been on the bottom of my list of poisonous concerns.

2

Really? Wow…

Well we don’t usually have it in the house so we should be fine, but thanks for the heads up.

3

The lethal dose of camphor (the chemical in question) is 50-500 mg per kilo, or about two teaspoons of Vicks Vapo-rub (4.7%) for an average sized 2 year old. OTher products that contain camphor are:

  Mothballs

  Antiseptics

  Campho-phenique (10.8%)

  Muscle liniments

  Camphor spirits

  Cold remedies

  Vicks Vapo-steam (6.2%)

Syrup of ipecac or other vomiting agents should NOT be given to kids who have swallowed camphor. Activated charcoal has not been widely studied, but may be useful. Gastric lavage (stomach pumping) is probably not useful unless done immediately. So what do you do? Nothing except watch them closely if they ate a little and take them to an ER if they ate a lot.

The good (bad?) news is that onset of symptoms in camphor poisoning happens very quickly, so if an hour passes and your kid is OK, everything’s going to be fine.

4

Gads, I remember my grandmother slathering Vick’s Vapo-rub all over my chest, under my nose (on my upper lip) and making me swallow a teaspoonful of it at LEAST three times when I was little and had a bad cold.

Maybe she was trying to kill me?!

5

Yes, she was sick of you whining about how sick you were. :wink: