Location
Moultrie, GA
Start Date
7-5-2025 1:00 PM
End Date
7-5-2025 4:00 PM
Description
Background
Hand Sanitizer intoxication often presents nonspecific symptoms like tachycardia, drowsiness, vomiting, and abdominal pain that can delay diagnosis and lead to more serious consequences like seizure and coma (Slaughter, 2014; Lacouture, 1983). This case describes a patient with sudden onset of altered mental status that resolved within 24 hour that was later found to be secondary to hand sanitizer intoxication.
Case
Patient is a 33-year-old female with history unspecified depressive disorder, alcohol dependence, and generalized anxiety disorder admitted to medicine floor in hospital for treatment of alcohol withdrawal. Patient was placed on CIWA protocol, given IV thiamine, and treated as indicated by CIWA and the patient improved. On day 5 of her hospital stay, the patient experienced an unwitnessed fall and was found on the floor with altered mental status. The patient’s UDS was negative and she returned back to her baseline within 24 hours. After being transferred to Crisis Center for language suspicious for suicidality, the patient revealed that she had ingested 2 large cups of hand sanitizer before her unwitnessed fall.
Discussion
As hand sanitizer use has become essential to the hospital experience and infectious disease control, knowledge of the complications of hand sanitizer ingestion and poison education should also be as widespread. Understanding hand sanitizer intoxication, the way it presents, and its complications are important for early diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of further disease.
Embargo Period
6-2-2025
Included in
Hand sanitizer intoxication in disguise: A case study
Moultrie, GA
Background
Hand Sanitizer intoxication often presents nonspecific symptoms like tachycardia, drowsiness, vomiting, and abdominal pain that can delay diagnosis and lead to more serious consequences like seizure and coma (Slaughter, 2014; Lacouture, 1983). This case describes a patient with sudden onset of altered mental status that resolved within 24 hour that was later found to be secondary to hand sanitizer intoxication.
Case
Patient is a 33-year-old female with history unspecified depressive disorder, alcohol dependence, and generalized anxiety disorder admitted to medicine floor in hospital for treatment of alcohol withdrawal. Patient was placed on CIWA protocol, given IV thiamine, and treated as indicated by CIWA and the patient improved. On day 5 of her hospital stay, the patient experienced an unwitnessed fall and was found on the floor with altered mental status. The patient’s UDS was negative and she returned back to her baseline within 24 hours. After being transferred to Crisis Center for language suspicious for suicidality, the patient revealed that she had ingested 2 large cups of hand sanitizer before her unwitnessed fall.
Discussion
As hand sanitizer use has become essential to the hospital experience and infectious disease control, knowledge of the complications of hand sanitizer ingestion and poison education should also be as widespread. Understanding hand sanitizer intoxication, the way it presents, and its complications are important for early diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of further disease.