Super glue
Doctor, there is a patient in room 4 with super glue in his eye. What is the correct response?
1) Emergency eye wash
2) Immediate referral to opthamologist
3) Remove the eye
4) Nothing
Nothing, yes, nothing. Where did I in my great medical knowledge find this? At the Super glue website. A grand storehouse of information on "what happens if I got superglue on...". What did I do? Eye wash, and call poison control.
Feeling insecure about trusting a public, nonmedical website I contacted poison control in Oregon. They said, "do nothing." In my now bolstered medical confidence, I called the opthamologist. Seriously, a guy mistakes a tube of superglue for visine and squirts a large amount into his eye, effectively gluing it shut. How could you leave that alone?
The ophthamologist said "leave it alone, and call me next week if it is still shut." Hard to believe, but I sent him home for a long weekend of radio listening. Apparently the oils and proteins in our eyes (even if it hits the sclera) and on our skin is enough to dissolve the glue if we just wait it out. Go figure. This was a much more entertaining exercise than the COPD exacerbation in room 2.
1) Emergency eye wash
2) Immediate referral to opthamologist
3) Remove the eye
4) Nothing
Nothing, yes, nothing. Where did I in my great medical knowledge find this? At the Super glue website. A grand storehouse of information on "what happens if I got superglue on...". What did I do? Eye wash, and call poison control.
Feeling insecure about trusting a public, nonmedical website I contacted poison control in Oregon. They said, "do nothing." In my now bolstered medical confidence, I called the opthamologist. Seriously, a guy mistakes a tube of superglue for visine and squirts a large amount into his eye, effectively gluing it shut. How could you leave that alone?
The ophthamologist said "leave it alone, and call me next week if it is still shut." Hard to believe, but I sent him home for a long weekend of radio listening. Apparently the oils and proteins in our eyes (even if it hits the sclera) and on our skin is enough to dissolve the glue if we just wait it out. Go figure. This was a much more entertaining exercise than the COPD exacerbation in room 2.
posted by rob at 6:08 PM
1 Comments:
I wonder how much that guy's co-pay was to find out he was supposed to leave it alone?
Also, I wonder how often this happens if the makers of superglue deem it important enough to have specific treatment protocol published on their website.
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