[KelleeWertz]

Hello - I did a really stupid thing this weekend, I mixed Clorox with another cleaning agent, while cleaning my toilet. The fumes were pretty bad, I coughed a lot and my eyes were bothering me - opened my window and just hurried to do the cleaning. I was exposed at most 5 minutes. Since this happened, Saturday afternoon, my chest hurts, I felt really constricted and had a very sore very deep cough. Could not sleep that night because I could not breath. I went to the doctor Sunday morning and he thought I suffered minor damages to my passages (from the inhalation) but said my lungs sounded fine and that my ears were red and that was probably why I felt so bad. He gave me a shot of steroids for the cough, prednisone and amoxicillin. It is Monday, and I feel like the cough is a little better, still hurts but I can get a deep enough breath to cough and I do not feel as tightly constricted. But I feel very aware of my breathing, and I feel very out of breath just to walk, even just sitting at my desk. I am using an inhaler but my back hurts, especially when I breath even under my arm hurts. I am pretty sure that is my lungs. I just feel horrible, my heart feels like it is racing, have had a headache for more than 24 hours that I can not shake and I feel my head I am burning up. That is not normal right? I read that household Clorox is made to not cause serious damages but, I felt fine until I had my indecent with the toilet.

[joypulv]

Oh, but bleach IS dangerous when mixed with ammonia products.
Call your doctor back. It may be that he will just assure you that you have to wait for all this to have a chance to heal, since it's really just like a burn, only inside all that delicate tissue. There's no easy to way to look in your airways. Your back hurts because your lungs are further towards your back than front. Your chest may hurt because your bronchial tubes are closer to the front. You can't walk because the air exchange is low for now. You may have scarring after it heals, you may not. Many of us have some scarring from pneumonia or other lung injury and live normal lives. Did you get Prednisone to take daily, or just once?

[KelleeWertz]

Thank you - the main ingredients were hydrochloric acid and sodium hypochlorite. (Sounds horrible) I will call him back, he kindof treated me like I was being over-sensitive. But, I do know how I felt and have had an ear infection before. This is different. The prednisone is twice a day for 5 days. Is there anything to do for the headache other than tylenol and water? I will just not move around too much. Thank you for your help!

[joypulv]

I should have said 'don't mix bleach with anything.' Way down in the fine print is says so, but I had to remove the label and take it out into the sunlight to read it. Way to go, Clorox. In the old days, mothers taught their children this with dire warnings, now mothers work and don't have time.

There is a lot of controversy these days about every household cleaner and even fragrances in soaps. I use tiny amounts of bleach and that's about it, except for vinegar and dish detergent. Some people use nothing but vinegar, which won't hurt anything except dirt, some germs and weeds. I have a bottle of Windex and a bottle or two of the multi-purpose cleaners, but only because my mother left them, and I gave away about 99% of the rest.

[joypulv]

Tylenol, Alleve-type, and ibuprofin-type. Try any of them. Some work on pain and headaches better than others for different people.
Drink lots of fluids to bathe your tissues all through your body. That and Prednisone may make you pee every 30 minutes.

[joypulv]

Oh, and your ears. Your ears are connected to the back of your throat by the eustacian tube. So it's possible to inhale fumes and have ear pain.

[KelleeWertz]

Thanks for all of your help! - I have been wondering why I am having to use the bathroom so frequent! Makes sense now. Has been a really crummy situation - I will just wait it out and hopefully I will recover soon. I appreciate your help it puts me at ease a bit! :) And absolutely being extremely careful the next time I use any cleaning agent!

[Matyas]

This kind of incident is really hard on your liver (on top of everything else). From my experience fish oil and niacin are good supplement choices. Metamucil also. The idea is to give your liver as much of a break as possible so it can focus on getting the poison out of your body.