Carbon Monoxide: a potential killer

By Rosemary Arnholt

VIEW News Editor

 

GENESEE COUNTY — Be sure that warm air is all that’s coming out of your heating unit this winter, state medical officials warn. Combine winter-locked windows with household appliances that can produce excess carbon monoxide and you have a potentially dangerous situation. CO is a colorless, odorless and tasteless gas produced by furnaces, gas water heaters, space heaters and other fuelburning appliances. Aside from thousands of emergency room visits, more than 100 people die every year from unintentional CO poisoning, AppaRao Mukkamala, MD, president of the Michigan State Medical Society and a Flint radiologist, says in a news release. Check all fuel-burning appliances, install CO detectors throughout the house near each sleeping area, never use charcoal in the house, and never use a gas range, oven or dryer for heating. Common symptoms often include headaches, dizziness, weakness, nausea vomiting, chest pain and confusion. Unfortunately, CO is completely undetectable without a properly installed CO detector. Carbon monoxide poisoning mirrors symptoms of several other disorders and is therefore very difficult to detect without a CO detector, Mukkamala says “More than 15,000 trips to the emergency room could be prevented each year in the U.S. by simply installing a carbon monoxide detector,” he added.

 

CO detectors range from $20-$60 and can be purchased from most hardware and home improvement stores. A CO detector alarm goes off when the level of CO has reached specific levels in various time increments. If an alarm sounds, “evacuate, ventilate and investigate,” say officials from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The most important step in recovery after CO poisoning is to re-establish the oxygen levels in the blood stream. As soon as an individual leaves a CO polluted area, oxygen begins to reenter the blood stream and all evidence of CO poisoning quickly disappears. When carbon monoxide and oxygen are present in the blood they do not play fair. CO beats oxygen to the blood and saturates it more quickly. Be sure to ventilate the area before returning to investigate the cause of CO pollution.

 

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