What is carbon monoxide poisoning?
Carbon monoxide poisoning happens with an over-concentration of CO in our blood. This takes place from breathing air with a huge concentration of carbon monoxide in it. CO can be fatal for our body since it replaces oxygen in our blood since the red blood cells store up CO faster than oxygen. When this happens, cells throughout the body suffer from a lack of oxygen and die, thus inhibiting the proper functioning of the different bodily organs. In extreme situations, CO poisoning may result in death.
The poisoning may happen in a short period and people are known to die in their sleep if the indoor airs gather a high concentration of CO due to some accident or system leakage. But carbon monoxide poisoning may also occur over a long period of time and symptoms may emerge slowly at first and may aggravate over time.
The most common and initial symptoms of CO poisoning include dizziness, nausea, or headache. However, if CO keeps up building in your blood, you may start suffering from more severe discomforts such as chest pain, fast heartbeats, seizures, vision problems, and drowsiness or confusion. Breathing CO fumes for a long period of time may also translate in brain damage and severe heart problems.
However, it is not easy to detect CO poisoning since many of these symptoms may be caused by other conditions, too. Some of the indications that problems are occurring due to CO poisoning are:
You feel headaches, mild nausea, or feel short of breath whenever you are indoors.
You feel okay when you are outside but the symptoms come back when you return home.
Other members of your family or your colleagues at your workplace are experiencing the same symptoms.
So, whenever you have a presentiment of this, you must do two things at the earliest– see your doctor and check your heating and other appliances indoor. Never ignore the problem or delay with it, since any such delay can be highly detrimental to your health and that of the other members of your family.
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