If you can’t afford carbon monoxide detectors, call your local fire department. Check the batteries at least twice a year to make sure they are working properly. Ideally, you want at least one on each floor and in every area where someone sleeps. Get carbon monoxide detectors for your home. Here’s how you can keep your family and home safe: How can I prevent carbon monoxide poisoning?Ĭarbon monoxide poisoning is 100% preventable. That’s why it’s so important to prevent carbon monoxide poisoning in the first place. The first signs of carbon monoxide in your home may be someone (or everyone) in your family getting sick. Since carbon monoxide is a colorless, odorless, and tasteless gas, it can be hard to tell if it is in your home. Machines that use gas-powered engines (like non-electric lawn mowers and leaf blowers)Įven burning wood or charcoal can create carbon monoxide. Vehicles that run on gasoline (like cars, motorcycles, trucks, and boats) Many things that people use every day create carbon monoxide. What gives off carbon monoxide in your home? If the gas builds up in an enclosed space - like a house or garage - people can breathe it in and get sick. That said, carbon monoxide needs to be vented out of an enclosed space right away. Burning the following things creates carbon monoxide: Carbon monoxide is created anytime fuel burns. To understand how carbon monoxide poisoning happens, it helps to know how carbon monoxide is created. How does carbon monoxide poisoning happen? If you notice everyone in your home is having these symptoms at the same time, check to make sure you don’t have a carbon monoxide leak. Usually, when a virus passes through a household, people don’t get sick at exactly the same time. This is one way you can tell the difference between carbon monoxide poisoning and a regular viral illness. Older people or those with chronic lung conditions, like COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease), may also get more serious symptoms faster. Children and pets may get more serious symptoms faster because they’re smaller. When there’s carbon monoxide in a home, everyone in the home will get sick at the same time. Loss of consciousness or be unable to wake up But then, pretty quickly, people can develop: So they may take a “wait-and-see” approach. Infants, toddlers, and young children might experience even more subtle symptoms like:Īnd because the early symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning are so vague, many people might mistake it for a virus like the flu. This makes it hard to tell if you have carbon monoxide poisoning. What are the symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning?Įarly symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning aren’t very specific. This lack of oxygen is why people can die from carbon monoxide poisoning. If they don’t get oxygen for long enough, they’ll stop working. Without oxygen, your organs and tissues can’t function properly. With carbon monoxide stuck on it, hemoglobin can’t pick up or deliver oxygen. Hemoglobin normally carries oxygen to your organs. In your bloodstream, carbon monoxide binds to hemoglobin in your red blood cells. Once you breathe in carbon monoxide, it enters your lungs and then your bloodstream. What does carbon monoxide do to the body?
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