Enough little chance - and now a mercury thermometer or lamp is broken. A dangerous substance quickly evaporates and is capable of causing serious harm to the body. The consequences of mercury vapor poisoning are extremely unpleasant, in some cases it is worthwhile to entrust your health to a doctor. In addition, knowing how to deal with broken mercury devices, how to treat mercury poisoning, symptoms and diagnostics in such a situation will never be superfluous.
How can trouble happen?
Unfortunately, not only broken thermometers can cause mercury poisoning. Diagnosis of this problem may be required even after eating normal foods such as fish and bread. Grains can be treated with herbicides, and seafood is contaminated due to water pollution. Mercury is also in cigarettes, it can fall to the ground with precipitation or evaporate from undetected deposits of ore. If you suspect mercury poisoning, the symptoms are the same as those described - contact a specialist immediately. In the opposite case, the outcome may be extremely unsafe for health.
How dangerous is this?
You may have acute or chronic mercury poisoning. Symptoms of chronic can not be very long. If you have the smallest drops of mercury left after a broken thermometer, couples can work on the body even when the problem is already forgotten. They get inside through the lungs or the skin. In this case, for the stomach, it is safe - if you drank balls of mercury, the substance would leave the body in an unchanged form. But mercury salts would have already caused harm to the body. So, if evaporation takes place little by little, but for a long time, and you already have chronic mercury poisoning, the symptoms will be as follows: irritability and fatigue appear , frequent headaches and drowsiness, memory will become worse. May begin to tremble limbs, change eating habits, there may be increased sensitivity of the skin, bleeding gums or excess saliva are also on the list. A blood test will show reduced hemoglobin and red blood cells. In pregnant women, poisoning can harm the condition of the fetus. When acute mercury poisoning occurs, the symptoms manifest themselves much faster. These include weakness and headaches, fever, abdominal and intestinal pain, kidney damage. The pneumonia develops, the lungs become swollen. The nervous system and the gastrointestinal tract begin to deteriorate. Accidental intake of mercury in the mouth leads to severe pain, bleeding, nausea and vomiting, acute kidney failure. Lethal outcome can also occur if there was a strong poisoning with mercury. Symptoms will manifest very quickly, and even doctors may not be in time to provide the necessary assistance. In more mild cases, the body will recover within three weeks. Early relief means consuming large amounts of water to induce vomiting when mercury preparations enter the stomach. In the body, the drug "Unitiol" (a universal antidote) is administered, the stomach is washed, and the mouth is treated with a solution of potassium permanganate. To tighten with the reference to the doctor in no event it is impossible.