Son drank screen wash - posting for traffic

[Beckyda1]

2yr old drank screen wash. Tesco one.. called 111 been told to keep an eye. I feel this isnt great advice. Wibu to take him a & e?

She says she asked because she phoned 111 and they told her she didn't need to go. So a perfectly good reason to be unsure.

magpie because she rang 111 and they told her to keep an eye on it. They are supposed to be first point of contact unless it is an emergency ie you need an ambulance.

Unless op is herself a medical professional or poisons specialist it's entirely plausible that she would take the advice of 111.

Hope he's alright. Any accidental ingestion of chemicals should be dealt with by a&e.

Hope he's OK op.

I used to work in a secure NHS hospital for patients with mental health and learning disabilities. They regularly ingested things they shouldn't, anything from shampoo to batteries out the remote (yes really). And we always rang 111 and the advice was never ever watch and wait, they always had to be taken to the main hospital to be checked over. Sometimes kept in overnight! So I am very very surprised at this advice you received today op. I hope your little one is OK.

Hope he's ok OP xx

IF I remember rightly from my mental health training the antidote is ethanol-alcohol. Not sure how this is administered though!!

I know a child who sprayed weed killer into his mouth, luckily he was fine but spent four hours in a&e.

@flamingofridays I get that,but when your 2 year old has ingested chemicals,I would not be taking the advice from someone sat behind a computer screen telling me to sit back and wait and see what happens

@sparklyMagpie nhs 111 have to follow algorithyms and these were designed by medical professionals, so if they went down the list of questions and the answer came out watch at home, you can be assured it was appropriate advice, nhs 111 is notoriously cautious and sends way to much to hospital ashte algo rithyms are designed to be ultra safe. plus shifts have a clinical doctor there too for operators to refer to is they are not sure .
this child put a mouthful of this stuff in his mouth, not sure how much he actually swallowed. if he seems fine and isnt being sick and has not got blisters all over his mouth then what will be gained by going to a&e ?
what exactly do you think they will do ? what probably will happen is mum and child will sit in the waiting room for at least 4 hrs and eventually get seen by a very junior doctor who will go away and look it up on the poisons data base and then say it seems he has not ingested enough to worry and to go home and watch him over the next few hours ...

we all know it is hard enough to get toddlers to eat yummy tasting things so often when they put something disgusting in their mouths they do spit or dribble most of it out.
Very very few would actually drink enough of a vile liquid to cause a problem and sensible parents can watch for symptoms at home

@theredjellybean Antifreeze poisoning doesn’t cause blistering of the mouth, nor does it always cause nausea and vomiting. One of the things that makes it so dangerous as a poison is just that - the symptoms don’t always cause alarm until it is too late.

So what can be gained by going to A&E is making sure your child hasn’t ingested a serious toxin. Why on earth would you not check in those circumstances?!

Is your little one okay OP?

Hope everything is ok OP.

Hope he’s okay OP

111 are absolutely rubbish at poisons advice.

Toddler DS ate the soap bar off of a lady shave razor (miraculously without slicing his lips off) - after I turned my back for quite literally 30 seconds while I put towels in the airing cupboard. He managed to climb up the ottoman, and onto the high shelf where i keep that sort of gubbins in that time, AND eat the bloody thing. In 30 seconds. He’s like Spider-Man meets the very hungry caterpillar.

I called 111 absolutely beside myself and they had literally no idea. In the end I found the ingredients list on the Ocado website, googled each individual ingredient, and checked it’s toxicity warning, all while watching DS for signs of poisoning.

Nothing was more toxic than “May cause nausea or vomiting” thank fuck.

111 called me back (with more non-advice) once I’d done this- and LAUGHED at how thorough I’d been.

I glugged screenwash once - my tenant had decanted it into an Evian bottle of water. It had no ill effects at all (caveat: obvs. am not 2 years old). Screenwash is diluted washing up liquid - now, antifreeze would be a different matter.

Screenwash is diluted washing up liquid - now, antifreeze would be a different matter.

Certain screen washes contain antifreeze, including they think the one this little one drank. It's talked about further up the thread.

Bairnsmum05 when my colleague’s cat drank anti freezer (apparently it is very attractive to cats) he vet went and got vodka from his flat to give the cat by IV.

I worked on a chemical plant and we had vodka in the medics room as the antidote.

Please come back and update us OP xx

She's probably still sitting in a and e. All they will do there is what 111 stated - look it up on the same toxBase and make him sit there and keep an eye on him. No wonder a and e is overloaded.

No wonder a and e is overloaded.

Yeah it's not violent drunks and drug addicts wasting doctors time, it's people worried about a 2 year old child's life.
Silly parent stupidly caring.

Hope everything is fine OP.

Ethylene glycol, included in most antifreeze and some screenwash, is pretty toxic. Depending on the concentration a spoonful could make a child very sick, a cup could kill.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethylene_glycol_poisoning#Toxicity

Some people here being stupidly undercautious.

No, this is not why A&E is overloaded.

Did you go to A&E?

How old did you say he is?