Carbon monoxide exposure?!


Question:

Carbon monoxide exposure?

I have been on a house boat for 3 days and didn't realize until today that my carbon monoxide detector was reading from 36-62 ppm. Will I suffer any sort of brain damage from longish exposure to small amounts?


Answers:

The problem with carbon monoxide is that it competes with oxygen for a place on haemoglobin molecules (inside red blood cells). Since your body needs oxygen, not carbon monoxide, if the latter takes the place of oxygen, the body can become hypoxic (short of oxygen).

Matters are made worse by the unfortunate coincidence that carbon monoxide binds with about 250 times the tenacity as oxygen, which means that it often takes a long time (hours to days) before all of it is eventually replaced by an oxygen molecule again. But eventually it is, and things return to normal.

The point is: now that you're off the house boat, you are over the worst. If you are feeling fine now, you will stay fine. This is not one of those conditions where you take a hit now, and it whacks you suddenly months or years later! So don't worry... but look into fixing the problem on the house boat!

Hope that helps!




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