Teen Dies from Methyl Salicylate (in Ben Gay, etc.)

[K]

Hello, Everyone.

I meant to post this when I first read about it, but I didn't get around to it until now. Very interesting for all of us "of a certain age" ahem! who may have used Ben Gay, etc. at one time or another. This is chronic use, but still. I had no idea this could happen.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19144600/

[Mikey]

Well anything could be deadly if used too much of.

I'm sure even baby asprine could kill if a person took a real-real lot.

[Sideshow Spock]

I've been using Ben Gay as a toothpaste for several years now. Accidentally grabbed the wrong tube after a bender one night, and developed a taste for it. Sounds like I better get off the stuff! :ugh_y:

[Mikey]

I bet she didn't have any boyfriends with her smelling like Ben Gay all the time ;)

[toys2cool]

wow that sucks

[Wee67]

This happened in my market (Staten Island), so we covered the story. This girl ran track and was frustrated she couldn't lower her times. She was pushing her body and suffering the consquences. She had four times the acceptable amount of this stuff in her system. She must have been slathering this stuff on like moisterizer. Even then, it is HIGHLY unusual.

BTW, the same stuff exists in regular aspirin.

[theantiquetiger]

I like the last sentence quoting the girl's mother:

“I am scrupulous about my children’s health,” she told the Advance. “I did not think an over-the-counter product could be unsafe.”

I just hope KY and/or Jergen's doesn't do the same!!

[Dave Mc]

I like the last sentence quoting the girl's mother:

“I am scrupulous about my children’s health,” she told the Advance. “I did not think an over-the-counter product could be unsafe.”

I just hope KY and/or Jergen's doesn't do the same!!

Interesting. She thinks the problem was the product was "unsafe" which means there will be a lawsuit. The problem wasn't that they didn't read the directions on a MEDICINE. I can buy Motrin over the counter, but I'm pretty sure if I eat an entire bottle in a day, something bad will happen.

[The Sentry]

You know, I try to use any kinda medicines just because of this very thing.
When I have a headache I usually deal with it until I just can't then I go for the advil(and that's like once every 3 months) I mean smokin and caffine's bad enough ya know? :yeah:

See, before Wayne Gretzky retired he was getting cortizone shots every game in his final season, I remember him saying "When you just can't do it, don't kid yourself, no matter how bad it hurts you inside. Life's too important for all that. There is such a thing as life after sports."

That's why that man is my hero!

Sadly no matter how much people say drugs and sports are a thing of the past this sad situation grimly shows us that said statement is far from true.:angry:

[ABMAC]

There you go using common sense again, Dave. Don't you know the big corporations are supposed to take care of that for us?

What happened to sports being fun? "No pain, no gain" is BS. It should be "no pain, no problem."

[Blue Meanie]

Whatever happened to taking a nice hot bath to get rid of all the aches and pains??? Also, if she was an athelete, it most likely means she belonged to a gym...don't they have whirlpools that you can get into that help muscles relax?? My personal opinion, for what it's worth, is that she didn't read the directions on the bottle on how to use the sports creme. It's like taking tylenol or asprin...it tells you not to use more than so many caplets in one day. It's RIGHT THERE!!! on the bottle.

[jemboy2004]

Dave, Abmac I do think suing over this is wrong as she clearly misused the product and didn't bother to read the directions. I agree on that.

BUT She was only 17 years old. I bet alot of people here can come up with something they did that was stupid, just they didn't have it go this way. I know using excessive amounts of ben-gay is really odd and dumb but she was young and young people sometimes do really stupid things. It's tragic to see this kind of thing.

even some adults do really dumb things and I can say well that was just plain stupid but teenagers think they know all and have always done really stupid things most survive this stupid faze and become older and wiser.

[Adam West]

They were actually talking about this story on Stern the other day.

Apparently a lot of athletes will lather up on the stuff before the event even begins.

My daughter is only 10 and runs track against what will be some future Olympians. You would not believe the amount of pressure and things the parents will do to push their kids well beyond their physical abilities.

One girl on her track team who is nationally ranked in 1500M used to physically puke every single time she finished the event. She is pushing her body way too hard and her parents just shrug it off as a normal side affect to participating.

My own daughter ranked #18 in the nation last year in Long Jump. She was able to jump about 11 feet at the age of 9. A lot of the super competitive parents would have pushed her to get better and better at the expense of injury and who knows what kind of psychological trauma.

This year she has been splitting time between track and soccer. I coach her soccer team and know how important it is to allow the body to rest and allow the muscles to build. We have skipped track meets, she has skipped soccer practices to give her time to relax. We skipped the State Track meet entirely this year because she really didn't want to do it and we didn't want her to do something she didn't want to do.

It is absolutely unbelievable the things I see parents do to their children when it comes to sports. I don't know if it makes them feel better about themselves because their children are better at sports than others or what the problem is. Eventually, most of the phenoms I'm seeing at this age will drop out altogether because their parents push them to hard and they end up with physical and psychological problems.