I've never been a fan of hand sanitizer. In the past, before this global health crisis broke out, I might have decided to use it once in a while, but only when it was the only option available, because I don't like how most of them smell, and they tend to destroy the skin on my hands, leaving them parched, irritated, and itchy. Then 2020 came around and with it a pandemic that made hand sanitizer a necessity more than a choice. It became one of the things on my checklist of must-have-with-me items when leaving the house. I was grateful that I could use it to help keep my family from getting sick. That is, until it made my husband sick. Yup, it made my husband sick, and like so many things this year, we didn't see that one coming.
You see, what happened was, when my husband went back to work, he started using hand sanitizer profusely. He's the head gardener at a large estate and is outdoors for most of the day, which means that washing his hands for 20 seconds with soap and water isn't really something he can do repeatedly throughout the day. But using hand sanitizer frequently during the workday was totally doable and was working well for him — until it didn't.
In early July, I heard that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had recalled a bunch of hand sanitizers that had been made in Mexico. I checked the FDA website and read the following:
“FDA is warning consumers and health care providers that the agency has seen a sharp increase in hand sanitizer products that are labeled to contain ethanol (also known as ethyl alcohol) but that have tested positive for methanol contamination. Methanol, or wood alcohol, is a substance that can be toxic when absorbed through the skin or ingested and can be life-threatening when ingested.”
I checked the recall list against the hand sanitizers we had at home, and none of them appeared on the list. I mostly checked out of concern for my kids, especially because one of my daughters has only one kidney, and I wasn't sure how methanol poisoning could affect her. I should have mentioned the recall to my husband, but I didn't because I just assumed he would have heard about it or someone at his work would have heard about it.
Well, about a week and a half after the FDA's initial warning, my husband came home from work on a Thursday just exhausted. He works hard and is normally tired after work, but this was different. He did not look well at all, and he fell asleep almost immediately after dinner. Then the following day he came home looking and feeling just as raggedy. Over the weekend he seemed to get his energy back, and I figured he had just been stressed and worn out.
Then Monday rolled around, and he went back to work. When he got home that evening, he said he was feeling kind of queasy. On Tuesday, he got up, got ready for work, and left, but the next thing I knew, he was back at home less than 30 minutes after leaving.
He said he felt like throwing up, and he had a bad case of diarrhea. Then he started getting shivers. Honestly, we thought it might be COVID-19, and he separated himself from the rest of us and monitored his temperature. The next morning, he felt much better. Still kind of off, but way better. He checked his work email and had a message telling him that one of the brands of hand sanitizer that they had stocked was on the FDA's recall list. Guess who had been using that particular brand for the last week and a few days? Yup, he had. Fortunately, most of his coworkers had not been using it. The only other person who had used the product hadn't used enough of it to really experience severe symptoms, although he had gotten quite lethargic.
I didn't know much about methanol poisoning before this, but let me tell you that it is serious stuff — and not just if you ingest it. Although methanol is most dangerous when ingested, it is also absorbed through the skin and can lead to blindness, coma, seizures, and death. It's terrifying!
I am beyond happy to report that my husband is fine. He did not use that hand sanitizer again, and all his symptoms went away. He did check in with the poison control center and his doctor just to make sure that he didn't need further treatment. Because his symptoms were also symptoms for COVID-19, he was given a test for the virus, and it came back negative. PHEW!
I'm sharing this story with you because here we are trying to stay healthy, and one of our go-to tools could potentially poison us. I urge you to please check the FDA hand sanitizer recall list regularly, as new products are often added to it. If you or anyone you know has been exposed to hand sanitizer with methanol, check in with your poison control center and your health care providers immediately.
