Everything is okay.

[rivka]

The milestone every parent looks forward to: first call to Poison Control.

"Ow, my lip hurts!" Alex said suddenly.

"Let me see... did you bite it?"

"No, I bited the pump," i.e., the hand sanitizer. 62% ethyl alcohol, harmful if swallowed, contact poison control immediately.

"What were you doing biting the pump?"

"I wanted to taste it, but it's yucky."

"How much did you eat?"

"Just a little bit."

I didn't think it could do any harm, but I called just in case. Poison Control seemed to detect a note of disgusted embarrassment, rather than panic, in my voice, and led me through a series of demographic questions before telling me to give her a glass of milk and she'd be fine.

She decided to taste the hand sanitizer. What the hell?

Comments

[rivka.livejournal.com]

I suppose here I'd call NHS Direct.

For anything else that wasn't "call an ambulance," I'd call her doctor's office and ask to speak to an advice nurse. But we have a nationwide network of Poison Control centers who do nothing but that, and they've got all the relevant dosages and decision trees right at their fingertips.

[ailbhe]

NHS Direct use http://www.toxbase.org/ but it's not available to the general public, apparently. I've never really thought about it. Until NHS Direct was invented, here or in Ireland we'd just call the doctor's office or out of hours number and speak to someone on the phone. I expect the information is better now and less likely to lead direct to A&E.