Comment by donatj
7 hours ago
The antidote to methanol is just ethanol.
If you find yourself drinking something untrustworthy you can at least cure yourself with a chaser of an equivalent amount of everclear.
7 hours ago
The antidote to methanol is just ethanol.
If you find yourself drinking something untrustworthy you can at least cure yourself with a chaser of an equivalent amount of everclear.
The way you're saying it is deeply irresponsible. The way to deal with methanol poisoning is not "just ethanol", and you cannot "cure yourself" by drinking everclear.
If you ever find out you have been drinking methanol by all means do drink safe spirits if you have immediate access to them (after throwing up what you can if you're still in time), but get medical help now. Ethanol will not cure you from methanol poisoning, it will only help reduce and delay the damage somewhat while you're waiting for an ambulance or making your way to a hospital to get proper treatment.
Worth noting that even in clinical settings, ethanol has largely been replaced by fomepizole (Antizol) as the preferred antidote. It's more predictable, easier to dose, and doesn't come with the side effect of making a critically ill patient drunk. Ethanol is the field expedient, not the standard of care.
Exactly. I'm unsure why the myth that EtOH is a 'satisfactory' antidote for MeOH poisoning persists but unfortunately it does—even here on HN.
I echoed the dangers of MeOH poisoning (in drink substitution, etc.) in my two posts and I've been downvoted several times without reason given.
Such misunderstandings are why I'm an advocate for strong regulations that ensure commonly-available MeOH is always denatured.
While the treatment for methanol poisoning indeed includes ethanol, I don’t think your dosage suggestion is right. Your body would still have to process all the methanol, the job of the ethanol is just to slow down the reaction. If you suspect methanol poisoning you need the hospital, they will administer the ethanol intravenously and I think do dialysis to remove the methanol and the formic acid it metabolizes to (this is one of the toxins in ant venom)
https://doi.org/10.1053/j.ajkd.2016.02.058
you are saving lives, friend.