If You Use This to Treat Headaches, Stop Immediately, Authorities Say
This popular treatment could present a serious safety risk.
Whether you get them after staring at your computer screen for long hours at work or find yourself feeling the pressure when you don't get adequate sleep, headaches are a common—and sometimes daily—occurrence for many adults. In seeking to relieve this nagging pain, people have turned to everything from acupuncture to analgesics with varying degrees of success.
Unfortunately, if you're using one particular headache treatment, you could be putting yourself in harm's way, according to authorities. Read on to discover if you should be tossing this treatment from your headache arsenal now.
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Plant Guru has recalled two of its headache treatments.
On June 24, the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) announced that Plant Guru had recalled its Headache Relief Essential Oil Blend and Headache Relief Roll-On Essential Oil Blend due to improper packaging.
The Headache Relief Essential Oil Blend was sold in 2-oz, 4-oz, 10-mL, and 30 mL amber-colored glass bottles, while the Headache Relief Roll-On was sold in a 10-mL blue rollerball bottle. The products can be identified by the Plant Guru logo and the words "100% Pure Essential Oil" on their label.
The brand is also recalling its Wintergreen Essential Oil, Birch Essential Oil, and Deep Muscle Essential Oil Blend, also packaged in 2-oz, 4-oz, 10-mL, and 30 mL amber-colored bottles. Approximately 25,600 Plant Guru products are being recalled in total.
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The oils present a potential poisoning risk.
The Plant Guru essential oils are being pulled from the market due to improper packaging that may present a poisoning risk.
The oils contain methyl salicylate, a chemical with a wintergreen scent that is frequently used in personal care products and presents an overdose risk if consumed in large quantities. Any product with methyl salicylate is supposed to be packaged in childproof packaging, a standard the recalled Plant Guru products fail to meet.
The wintergreen and birch oils were sold on Amazon, eBay, and via the Plant Guru website between March 2018 and Feb. 2021; the blended oils were sold on the same sites from March 2018 and March 2021.
If you use the affected treatments, stop immediately.
If you have any of the affected Plant Guru products at home, the CPSC recommends that you "immediately stop."
The roll-on headache treatment can be returned to Plant Guru for a full refund, while individuals who purchased the other essential oils can contact the company to receive a complimentary child-safe cap. Until you have returned your products or replaced their caps with child-resistant ones, the CPSC recommends storing the oils in a location where they cannot be accessed by children.
If you have the affected oils at home, call Plant Guru at 877-788-0530 from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. ET on weekdays or email the company at [email protected]. You can also visit the Plant Guru recall page for more information.
This isn't the first essential oil recall this year.
Plant Guru isn't the only essential oil company that's had to pull its products from the market due to safety concerns in the past year. On April 1, 2021, dōTERRA recalled approximately 1.3 million of its Deep Blue, PastTense and Deep Blue Touch Essential Oils due to a lack of child-resistant packaging on the products, which contain methyl salicylate.
Just one week later, on April 8, GEO recalled approximately 220 of its GEO Wintergreen Organic Essential Oil and GEO Alleviate Organic Essential Oil Blend, both of which contain methyl salicylate, after it was discovered that the products were sold in packaging that isn't child-resistant.
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