Patient handout

Carbon monoxide poisoning

PRODUCTION

1. Your condition

This handout is for carbon monoxide poisoning. Your care team identified this based on: smoke / fire / faulty heater / generator exposure (aact 2023).

Other reasons your team may use this plan: altered mental status with possible co source (aact 2023); cluster headache/nausea in shared environment (winter, family) (aact 2023); elevated carboxyhemoglobin on co-oximetry (aact 2023).

2. Your medications

Take these medications exactly as prescribed. Do not stop or change a dose without talking to your provider.

Medication	Starting dose	How	When	What it does
oxygen_100_percent	100% via tight non-rebreather mask 15 L/min, OR ETT with FiO2 1.0	inhaled	continuous until COHb <5% AND symptoms resolved	COHb half-life: 5 hours room air → 60-90 min on 100% O2 → 20-30 min in HBO at 2.5-3 atm. NRB delivers ~70-90% FiO2; ETT with FiO2 1.0 is gold standard (AACT 2023)

Plan: CO poisoning — oxygen elimination + HBO indication evaluation (AACT 2023)

4. When to seek emergency care

Call 911 or go to the nearest emergency room right away if you have:

COHb >25% (>15% in pregnancy) (AACT 2023)
Any loss of consciousness during CO exposure (regardless of COHb on arrival) (AACT 2023)
pH <7.2 OR ECG ischemia OR positive troponin OR persistent neuro deficit after 4-6 h normobaric O2 (AACT 2023)
Pregnancy + any CO exposure with symptoms OR COHb ≥15-20% (AACT 2023)
Fire / smoke inhalation + lactate >10 mmol/L unexplained (AACT 2023)(life-threatening)
Cardiac arrest in CO context (with or without ROSC) (AACT 2023)(life-threatening)

5. Follow-up

Neurocognitive assessment 1–2 months for delayed neuropsychiatric syndrome; home CO detector education; source remediation; psych if intentional (AACT 2023)

6. Sources

Guideline: Pending — manifest is scaffold-level. Anchors: Weaver NEJM 2002 (HBO trial); UHMS HBO indications; ACEP CO clinical policy

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12362006