FAQ: What are the early signs of carbon monoxide poisoning?

Short Answer: Headache, nausea, lightheadedness, vomiting and brain fog. All which are not specific enough to warn in absence of a carbon monoxide alarm.

What are the early signs of carbon monoxide poisoning? Flu like symptoms are the most common, including headache, nausea or symptoms that might be similar to those of a concussion, like confusion, mental fogginess. The longer you are exposed, the more danger that you slip into a coma and die.

Gordon Johnson: All right, let’s ask a few more of the frequently asked questions. What are the early signs of carbon monoxide poisoning?

Griff Winthrop: Headache, nausea, dizziness? Scattered foggy brain. We’ve heard of people having problems connecting their thoughts.

Gordon Johnson: What’s the most significant differentiator between carbon monoxide poisoning and some other illness?

Griff Winthrop: If you remove yourself from the poisoning environment, you feel 100% better.

Gordon Johnson: And there’s one other thing that is very, very significant. If you’re not the only one in the room feeling the same way in the same time frame, right? So your family can all get the flu, but they’re not all going to get it within a 20 minutes of each other.

So if all of a sudden everybody in your family is feeling somewhere on the spectrum from headache to nausea to vomiting to fainting, get out of the house.

For more on the acute diagnosis of carbon monoxide poisoning, click here.