Camphor Poisoning: Warning Signs and First Steps

If someone has swallowed camphor, stop reading and call Poison Control at 1-800-222-1222 in the United States. Call 911 instead if the person has a seizure, has trouble breathing, or cannot be woken. Do not wait to see whether symptoms appear.

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Why not wait?

The Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne says symptoms can begin within 5 to 15 minutes of swallowing, and that seizures usually occur within 90 minutes, sometimes preceded by muscle twitching, confusion and restlessness. The American Association of Poison Control Centers guideline describes seizures as a feature that can arrive early and without a long warning, which is why calling before anything shows is the sensible rule.

It is worth reading this page calmly, before you ever need it. Stressful moments make it hard to think, so a little preparation goes a long way.

What to have ready

The container and its label, in your hand. Many camphor products also contain menthol, eucalyptus oil or salicylates, and the poison center needs to know exactly what was swallowed.
The person's age and weight, because thresholds are calculated per kilogram.
Roughly how much, and when.

What the early signs look like

The hospital guideline lists burning in the mouth or stomach, nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, headache, dizziness and confusion, often with a strong camphor smell on the breath. The more serious signs are seizures, slowed breathing and loss of consciousness. Clinical toxicity in people who recover typically resolves within about 24 hours, but that is a reason for medical supervision, not for staying home.

If you are not sure whether something counts as an emergency, treat it as one and call. Poison Control is free, the people answering are used to calls that turn out to be nothing, and they would much rather hear from you early than late.

Skin, eyes and fumes

For skin contact, wash thoroughly with soap and water, and remove contaminated clothing. For eyes, rinse with water and call Poison Control. For heavy fumes, get to fresh air. Camphor is absorbed through skin, so a large skin exposure to a small child deserves the same call. For a pet, call a veterinarian or Pet Poison Helpline right away.

Please do not improvise

Do not try to make the person vomit unless the poison center tells you to. The AAPCC guideline advises against ipecac, and says activated charcoal is not recommended for camphor on its own. Let the professionals decide what is next.

How much is too much?

There is no single safe number, only thresholds used for triage. The hospital guideline says irritation and nervous system effects can occur above 10 mg/kg, serious toxicity has been reported above 30 mg/kg, and 0.5 to 1 g is considered a lethal oral dose in children. These are referral and hazard figures, not doses, and we cannot translate them into drops of our oil, because the Certificate of Analysis for our batch lists density, refractive index and optical rotation and does not report camphor content. What a small body can tolerate is far less than most adults assume.

Set up your home before anything happens

A few minutes of planning take the guesswork out of a bad moment:

Save the Poison Control number, 1-800-222-1222, in every adult's phone and write it somewhere visible, like the inside of a cabinet door.
Keep every camphor product in its original container so the label is always there to read.
Know where the bottle is. If you cannot say at a glance, it is not stored well enough.
Decide ahead of time who calls and who stays with the person, so nobody wastes minutes deciding.

Preventing the call

Camphor oil is for external, adult use only. Our guidance is to keep it tightly capped, in a cool, dark, closed place away from children and pets, and never to ingest it. If you want the practical side, camphor oil and children and camphor oil and pets cover storage, and who should skip camphor oil and can you ingest camphor oil cover the rest. For the bigger picture, see is camphor oil safe.

The best outcome here is the one where nobody ever needs this page.