Insecticide

Injury	Disease	Nutrition	Poison

Symptoms	Surgery	Test	Special Topic

Overview

Symptoms

Treatment

Insecticide

Home Treatment:

Seek emergency medical care immediately. If the product is on the skin, wash area thoroughly for at least 15 minutes. Mouth to mouth resuscitation may be necessary if the person stops breathing. These substances can be lethal very quickly.

Before Calling Emergency:

Determine the following information:

the patient's age, weight, and condition
the name of the product (ingredients and strengths, if known)
the time it was swallowed
the amount swallowed

Poison Control, or a local emergency number:

See Poison Control centers for telephone numbers and addresses. Take the container with you to the emergency room.

What to expect at the emergency room:

Some or all of the following procedures may be performed:

For swallowed poison
- Placement of a tube down the nose and into the stomach (a nasogastric tube, or an NG tube) to wash out the stomach
- Activated charcoal administration
- Endoscopy -- the placement of a camera down the throat to see the extent of burns to the esophagus and the stomach
- Give IV fluids
- Admission to the hospital
- Give an antidote
- Treat the symptoms
For inhaled poisons
- A breathing tube may need to be inserted
- Oxygen
- Admission to the hospital or to the intensive care unit
- Bronchoscopy (inserting a camera down the throat into the airway to evaluate the extent of burns to the airway and lungs)
For skin exposure
- Irrigation (washing of the skin), perhaps every few hours for several days
- Skin debridement (surgical removal of burned skin)
- Admission or transfer to a hospital that specializes in burn care

Expectations (prognosis):

If an antidote is given quickly, recovery is likely. Time to treatment is critical. Continued improvement of symptoms over the first 4 to 6 hours under proper medical care usually indicates that recovery will occur. Although the symptoms are the same for carbamate and organophosphate, the carbamate has a more favorable outcome.

Review Date: 4/16/2004
Reviewed By: Cherlin Johnson, M.D., Department of Emergency Medicine, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA. Review provided by VeriMed Healthcare Network.

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