Activated carbon. Instruction, application, contraindications

A variety of sorbents, which have the ability to absorb, retain and remove from the body toxic substances, people have been using since ancient times. Among them, confidently activated carbon is the leader . The instruction indicates that it adsorbs toxins, alkaloids, gases and other chemical compounds, practically does not dissolve in ordinary solvents, does not have a smell and taste.

With dyspepsia, food poisoning, flatulence, intoxications with heavy metal salts, alkaloids, and also with strong intoxication of the body use activated charcoal. The method of application requires some refinement. This drug is not suitable for long-term therapy, since it is able to bind in the gastrointestinal tract not only all toxic, but also a lot of substances useful for the human body (amino acids, vitamins, enzymes). In addition, a series of studies helped to find out that with constant use the drug can cause nausea, vomiting and other complications.

Already for several decades, one of the most effective nonspecific antidotes in emergency situations is activated charcoal. Its composition makes it easy to absorb most poisons, not allowing them to be absorbed into the body. So, for example, one gram of the drug can bind 350 mg of alcohol, up to seven hundred milligrams of barbitan and at least eight hundred milligrams of morphine.

When heating wood, coal, peat and other plant substances, without access to air, activated charcoal is formed. Its composition includes only environmentally friendly products, absolutely safe for the human body. Additional chemical treatment makes it possible to obtain a substance with a porous openwork framework that has the most absorbent surface.

In the first twelve hours after intoxication and poisoning, experts recommend using activated charcoal. The method of application in such cases is as follows. Thirty gram of powder is diluted in one hundred and fifty grams of water and taken in as a liquid slurry. With the same mixture, only diluted in a liter of water, gastric lavage is carried out , and the drug is recommended to be used before and after these manipulations. This will help to cleanse the body of all the toxic substances, while the coal itself is not sorbed in the stomach or intestines, but is withdrawn outward along with the stool, staining it in a dark color.

When food intoxication, diarrhea, acidity, colitis, dyspepsia and flatulence in the amount of two grams four times a day, activated charcoal is taken. The instruction indicates that this drug should not be consumed simultaneously with any other medicinal product. It will inevitably be absorbed, and the sorption capacity of coal in relation to poisons will decrease significantly.

In the complex therapy and for preventive purposes, activated carbon is used. The instruction includes a number of contraindications, which include a systematic, uncontrolled, constant intake of the drug in large quantities. This can lead to hypovitaminosis, cause chronic constipation, worsen the absorption of nutrients needed by the body in the digestive tract. Do not forget that this drug along with harmful substances adsorbs and useful. Therefore, when taking hormonal drugs, vitamins and antibiotics, it is necessary to use with special caution activated charcoal.

The instruction obliges all concomitant medications to be taken an hour and a half before or after the same time after the use of this drug. In conventional therapeutic doses, it is allowed to drink even to pregnant women, which indicates the complete safety of coal. It helps to defeat toxicosis, to purify the body in time and to facilitate the work of the liver. Contraindicated in coal with gastric bleeding and the presence of ulcerative gastrointestinal lesions. In all other cases it is very useful and safe, but this does not mean that the drug can be drunk daily for the prevention. It should be used only if serious problems occur.