parenting commitment level 3000
apparently a requirement for working at poison control is a talent for stand-up comedy
When I was training to be a paramedic, we had one student ask the instructor what to do in the event of a marijuana overdose. The instructor said "Tell him to take two twinkies and call you in the morning."
Okay, there's a good reason for this though!
If the Please Do Not Eat That Professional thinks it's inconsequential enough to be funny, then the concerned caller knows it's no big deal. When I was a kid my mom called poison control because I ate not one but several crayons, and their advice was to make sure I didn't stray too far from a toilet for a few hours because suppositories are made of wax, too.
Also several years ago I ate half a sandwich while wondering why the hell it tasted so funny only to realize the Goo Gone I'd been cleaning with was leaking, and did so onto my sandwich. Poison Control now has an online form where you can put in what you ingested/how much/when/etc. and someone basically triages those out, so the kid who just drank a bunch of drain cleaner isn't in line behind the kid who ate a crayon. I got a call like twenty minutes later from a nurse who told me I was fine.
Oh! And if you want to know what the tool looks like, it now gives a "this is not a real case" option to let you test it out, so I became a hypothetical worried patient who accidentally took 1000mg of ibuprofen (max dose should be 800) instead of 1000mg of acetaminophen (which has a max dose of 1000) and ran the entire thing. It took me less than two minutes from this:
To this:
Below this screenshot I was advised to drink some water and that if symptoms developed in the next four hours, I should only be concerned in certain cases (e.g. nausea is normal, heart palpitations are a problem).
So what if it's a serious problem? Suddenly, hypothetical Nina was cleaning xir bathroom sink and got hit with some Drano splashback with xir eyes and mouth open! Here's what the tool suggested. As soon as I selected that I'd gotten Drano in my eyes, this popped up:
So I hypothetically went to rinse my eyes, came back, and indicated it'd also gotten into my mouth and onto my skin. Here was the result:
And finally, hypothetical!Nina made an extremely bad decision, then decided this wasn't how xe wanted things to end after all. So I selected the option that says I'd attempted self-harm, and this popped up. (I didn't get it in the screenshot, but there's a drawing of a sad snail at the top of the screen. I think it's supposed to remind you someone is there, this just isn't the best route to reach them.)
The tool covers literally thousands of substances, and it's fast to use. It'll ask your age, assigned sex at birth, what you were exposed to, how (ate/drank it, breathed it in, got it in your eyes, etc.), how much you were exposed to, how long ago, whether you notice any symptoms, and what zip code you're in. That's it, and it's right here if you need it, and as they told me when I said I felt dumb over my Goo Gone-ified sandwich, they'd rather I check and be fine than not check because I "felt silly" and end up dead.
