What happens if lye is swallowed

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By law, lye water must meet strict safety requirements if it is sold for household use. Uses Lye water is an ingredient used in Asian and African cooking for cooking meat, rice or noodles and vegetables like corn, beans, maize or okra to soften or add flavour or keep vegetables colour.

Lye water can also be used in soap making and as a cleaning agent. Health concerns Lye water is a strongly alkaline caustic solution which can cause severe injury in the form of corrosive burns, especially to the throat, oesophagus and stomach if swallowed.

Lye water can be dangerous if: accidentally swallowed straight from the bottle, which can burn your mouth, throat and stomach splashed on skin, which can burn your eyes and skin. Services Documents Links.

Lye water, the sale of Lye water food additives cannot be sold or supplied for household use if the pH level is higher than Sodium hydroxide is a very strong chemical. It is also known as lye and caustic soda.

This article discusses poisoning from touching, breathing in inhaling , or swallowing sodium hydroxide. This is for information only and not for use in the treatment or management of an actual poison exposure.

If you have an exposure, you should call your local emergency number such as or the National Poison Control Center at Sodium hydroxide is found in many industrial solvents and cleaners, including products to strip floors, brick cleaners, cements, and many others.

Seek medical help right away. DO NOT make a person throw up unless the poison control or a health care provider tells you to. If the chemical was swallowed, give the person water or milk right away, unless a provider tells you something different.

Also, DO NOT give water or milk if the person is having symptoms that make it hard to swallow such as vomiting, convulsions, or decreased alertness. Your local poison center can be reached directly by calling the national toll-free Poison Help hotline from anywhere in the United States.

This hotline number will let you talk to experts in poisoning. They will give you further instructions. This is a free and confidential service. You should call if you have any questions about poisoning or poison prevention.

It does NOT need to be an emergency. You can call for any reason, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. The provider will measure and monitor the person's vital signs, including temperature, pulse, breathing rate, and blood pressure. Symptoms will be treated. Treatment depends on how the poisoning occurred. Pain medicine will be given. Liquid with an unspecific smell was noted flowing from his mouth. An administrative autopsy was conducted by the medical examiner Y.

Macroscopically, the lips, chin, oral cavity, neck, and thoracoabdominal and back skin were blackish brown. Wine-red fluid was identified in the left mL and right mL sides of the thoracic cavity. The remnants of the left and right lungs weighed g and g, respectively, and showed black coloration Fig.

Grayish discoloration of the gastric mucosa was seen, but no perforating ulcers were detected macroscopically. A small volume 20 mL of slightly reddish gastrointestinal contents was found, and it showed a pH level of 7—8 according to pH indicator strips Fig. Slides of the esophagus and trachea could not be made due to almost complete liquefaction. Histopathologically, severe liquefactive necrosis was evident in the remnant lung tissue and stomach.

In the lung tissue, alveolar spaces were dilated with eosinophilic protein contents, and the nuclei of cellular components alveolar epithelial cells, interstitial cells, vascular tissues of the alveolar walls had completely disappeared, indicating that the cells were ghost cells Fig.

Cellular components in all layers of the stomach showed liquefactive necrosis without inflammatory reactions Fig. No penetrating or perforating ulcers were detected in the stomach or small or large intestines. The superficial mucosa showed a pH level of 7—8 on pH indicator strips. Note the liquefactive necrosis of the remnant lung tissue and stomach, indicating the cells were ghost cells insert.

In the present case, death was attributed to direct digestive and respiratory burns. Alkalis such as sodium hydroxide cause liquefactive necrosis with saponification of fats and solubilization of proteins, and they absorb water from tissues, resulting in deep penetration into tissues 3 , The severity of injury depends on the concentration, volume and duration of contact with the agent and the presence of food in the gastrointestinal tract 10 , Alkali-induced injuries to the upper gastrointestinal tract can be graded macroscopically as follows: grade 1, edema and hyperemia of the mucosa; grade 2, subdivided into grade 2a superficial ulceration, erosion, friability, blistering, exudate, hemorrhage, whitish membranes and grade 2b grade 2a plus deep discrete or circumferential ulceration ; and grade 3, subdivided into grade 3a small scattered areas of ulceration and areas of necrosis and grade 3b extensive necrosis, showing brown-black or grayish discoloration of the mucosa 10 , The present case would be categorized as the most severe grade of 3b because of liquefactive necrosis in all layers of the stomach, in addition to complete liquefaction of the esophagus.

In a rat model of esophageal injury, the concentration of sodium hydroxide is very important in terms of damage production: 1. In the present case, only a short number of hours must have passed between ingestion and death, as biological reactions such as vasodilation and inflammation were not detected in gastrointestinal or respiratory organs in addition to complete liquefaction of the esophagus.

Many therapeutic cases with acute toxicity after caustic exposure suicides or accidents have been described 2 , 12 , 14 , but relatively few forensic autopsy cases have been reported 7 , 8 , Moreover, ethical issues from the perspective of animal welfare 15 have constrained animal studies of caustic exposure in recent years. This unfortunate human case thus offers a valuable contribution to understanding the direct effects of systemic exposure to corrosive substances.

Disclosure of Potential Conflicts of Interest: The authors have no conflicts of interest to report in connection with this paper. We made our best efforts to ensure that readers could not identify the patient in this case report.