15 ms·

Well... time for anecdotal sample-of-1 "science": About two decades ago I got a huge case of almost-asthma pollen allergy out of nowhere, almost overnight. I g

Well... time for anecdotal sample-of-1 "science": About two decades ago I got a huge case of almost-asthma pollen allergy out of nowhere, almost overnight. I got the usual treatment (desensitization + meds) and it got somewhat better over the years. Simultaneously I developed other allergies though, for example, suddenly I was very allergic to cats (I had had cats earlier, so that was new). A few years ago I was diagnosed with a case of chronic heavy-metal poisoning. Now, many treatments with DMPS (the main chelator for mercury) and DMSA later, I have completely lost all allergies (and a long list of other "strange" problems, including a real medical miracle that left the endocrinologist repeating "I'm amazed" over and over after checking his ultrasound results twice, after asking me to lie down again because he did not trust his results). End of anecdote. ------------------------------ EDIT: As someone who has taken hundreds of hours of anatomy, physiology, org. chem, statistics (focus on public health and use in medicine), neuroscience, I am aware that there is not "one path that explains all". There are soooooo many pathways, and different things can affect different parts leading to similar results. So I am NOT saying "this is the one and only way to get an allergy". In fact it is highly unlikely that there is only one possible cause. So if you have found an anecdote that seems to show that something else helped and/or caused it than "heavy metals" that's just fine and normal - and has nothing to do with my anecdote. You can get a flesh wound not just by cutting yourself with a kitchen knife, there are endless possibilities.

cylinder 10y ago
What is the best test and type of specialist to determine if you have metal poisoning? I'm glad you are feeling better.
xenophonf 10y ago
I vaguely recall reading something on Usenet or something that would have made it onto Slashdot or Plastic in the late 90s/early 00s, where someone treated their allergies or asthma or something by deliberately infecting themselves with a parasitic worm---I forget which, maybe hookworm. They actually went to so far as to cultivate the worm in some medium that they could apply to their stomach using a custom-made patch, started pooping oocytes, and then completed the usual treatment course for whatever it was they infected themselves with. I can't recall if it cleared up the condition from which they were suffering, and obviously, this wasn't any kind of controlled trial. Lord knows that such a study would give an IRB six fits, and rightly so!
- dzhiurgis 10y ago
  What is Plastic?
  - xenophonf 10y ago
    Oh you sweet summer child, who never got to experience Suck.com or Plastic in their (respective) heydays. Your world is objectively poorer as a result, but least the Brunching Shuttlecocks is still online!
    - josephmx 10y ago
      Look how special, important, and better you are as a result of being 10 years older than a random stranger :)
      - rsync 10y ago
        I would argue that experiencing suck.com, in it's time and element, was a very unique and valuable experience.
      - xenophonf 10y ago
        Older, yes, but sadly, the wisdom I expected to attend age has not yet appeared. :)
      - xenophonf 10y ago
        Aw, you people downvoted this? It was the perfect take-down to my damn-kids-get-off-my-lawn comment. Sorry, @josephmx. :(
        josephmx 10y ago
        I'm sure I'll live, thanks though :)
    - dzhiurgis 10y ago
      I was on Slashdot for a while, but I assume those were few years older. I also missed out on newsgroups and BBSes, poor me :) Is it more of a reddit than HN of the time?
bbcbasic 10y ago
Wow. How did you get poisioned if you don't mind me asking? And what was the miracle?
StavrosK 10y ago
Wait, how the hell did you get heavy metal poisoning?
- daveguy 10y ago
  Possibly mercury from dental amalgum. Those "silver" fillings are approximately 50% mercury: http://www.fda.gov/MedicalDevices/ProductsandMedicalProcedures/DentalProducts/DentalAmalgam/ucm171094.htm http://www.fda.gov/MedicalDevices/ProductsandMedicalProcedur... Generally inert in place and it has to be inhaled to be absorbed. However, drilling/removal/chipping can release absorbable particles. Edit: Also note -- because they are inert in place so advice from the FDA is to leave them be as long as the fillings are in good condition and there is no decay beneath the filling. In other words -- don't panic and take an ice pick to your perfectly good fillings.
- VLM 10y ago
  I didn't see a response. Fish are very good at accumulating and concentrating biologically active mercury. My state DNR has all kinds of pamphlets along the general topic of less than one serving per week of inland lake caught fish puts you at risk of lack of omega-3 acids and more than one serving per week puts you at significant risk of mercury poisoning. And they helpfully suggest women who could become pregnant only eat certain species like once per month at most. So at camp eating fish, if you're a woman you can eat half a decades worth of contaminated fish in a couple days. Some of the advice is crazy, or spooky. Women under 50 should eat less than one can of tuna per month according to my state DNR. I work with a low carb person who eats a can of tuna per day every day for lunch. Their blood mercury level must be off the charts. Like they could use the veins in their arm as a mercury thermometer or something.
  - rudolf0 10y ago
    ...Couldn't you just supplement omega 3 pills (fish oil or algae oil) and not eat the contaminated fish?
    - cyounkins 10y ago
Diederich 10y ago
Thank you for sharing this. Can you share how you were exposed to apparently toxic levels of heavy-metals?
- SEJeff 10y ago
  Likely too much Black Sabbath on his pandora playlist.
  - Cthulhu_ 10y ago
    There's no such thing as too much Black Sabbath.
  - somedangedname 10y ago
    You were downvoted for this but I believe that your cause is just.
sageikosa 10y ago
My teenage daughter developed peanut allergies in her mid teens while traveling with a drum corps one summer. She had noticed how ill she was feeling and systematically cut out foods until she narrowed the peanut butter sandwiches (she had been an avid peanut butter eater for years before). When she got back from tour and was tested she was confirmed for strong peanut allergies and had to carry an epi-pen. However, after about a year she got tested again and now had no reaction. I still attribute this to something else was in her system that triggered reaction in conjunction with the peanut proteins.
- brookside 10y ago
  Did she play a brass instrument by chance? Some mouthpieces are leaded brass. Also some players also have reaction to brass.
  - sageikosa 10y ago
    Timpani. She played a flute also, but not over the summer. Every time I mention this people kind of look at me funny when I offer my co-trigger explanation as "some kind of bug", but I was reading Dawkins at the time and had come to stop thinking about unitary causes for phenotypic expressions. Of course, that's not the easiest course of conversation to travel down with most people, so I just sort of accept the silence that follows. It does give me the fun little anecdote of how my daughter was deathly allergic to peanuts for a year, but then she got better.
    - jaggederest 10y ago
      I feel like there are probably similar cotriggers for many chronic illnesses. The classic example is H. Pylori in stomach problems. I doubt that it's a lone outlier.
- lucaspiller 10y ago
  I was born and raised in the countryside and lived in the same house until I was 18. When I was around 11 I developed severe hay fever out of nowhere. It's not like I wasn't exposed to pollen before, as I was a typical country kid running around in fields and such. The doctor issued me the usual antihistamines, but they didn't really help so I just sucked it up every summer. When I was 17 I started wearing contact lenses - and after that no more hay fever. I thought at first the contact lenses were blocking the pollen from getting into my eyes, but I've now reverted back to almost always wearing glasses. 10 years later and no more hay fever. Go figure...
pjc50 10y ago
Interesting. This is definitely an industrial-era problem that would explain why allergies are seemingly more prevalent. I wonder if it could also apply to gluten 'sensitivity'? Whereabouts do you think the mercury came from - food or water? (See also the recent discussions around lead including in Flint, Michigan)
daemin 10y ago
Since we're talking about anecdotes and allergies, I've heard multiple people (body building enthusiasts let's say) that they lost their hayfever allergies after taking a course of body-building steroids. I know from experience that taking steroids reduces the immune system response, so there is something to that.
- PeterisP 10y ago
  The prescription drugs for some types of allergies and asthma are a form of steroids.
  - davak 10y ago
    Typically those are different types of steroids though. Anti allergy steroids are called the "body's universal solvent" because of all the side effects including muscle weakness and fat gain. Anabolic steroids work on a different pathway. Of note some of modern human allergies come from infant avoidance. Kids who eat peanuts younger are less likely to get peanut allergies for example. If you want to decrease allergies, let your infants get dirty, play with dogs, and liberalize their diet.
    - tsmarsh 10y ago
      Again, anecdote, science of 1... but that can't be universally the case because of me. I'm Gen X (1979), grew up playing in dirt, house filled with dogs and cats. Ate a fair amount of things, apart from the things I was allergic too: apples mostly. Most of the food I ate was home cooked. My sisters do not have allergies. It has since gone on to get much, much worse. I can no longer eat carrots or parsnips (which were my favourite). I'm now very allergic to dogs and cats and it wasn't because of a lack of exposure.
    - Bombthecat 10y ago
      Grow partly up on a farm. Drunk raw milk. Self made quark and Joghurt. Played with young horses and cows. Played in haystack etc etc. 40 allergies. Fuck me...
rudolf0 10y ago
Would heavy mental poisoning not appear in a standard blood test?
- James001 10y ago
  no, most standard blood tests are surprisingly limited.
- hospes 10y ago
  Normally when you go to the dr's office with allergies none is trying to find heavy metal poisoning. A lot of times they do not even perform regular blood work, they just do tests for allergies and prescribe meds to address symptoms (like antihistamines or steroids, or both). With certain types of airborne allergies (like dust mite allergies or pollen allergies) they can also offer immunotherapy (allergy shots) as a treatment. They inject gradually increasing doses of allergen which leads to development of immunity or tolerance to the allergen. Immunotherapy is the only available treatment for airborne allergies at this point, it is more than 100 years old and takes several years of injections to complete it and a lot of times it is not very effective.
  - douche 10y ago
    Do allergy shots actually work in any measurable fashion? I had weekly shots for years as a child, to try to counter some crippling dust and pet allergies, but the only effect I ever experienced was feeling miserable for six days out of the week, and finally having the crap washed out of my system by the seventh day, just in time to get shot up again. On the other hand, after puberty and a serious illness in my late teens that basically rebooted my immune system, I haven't had any issues with allergies ever since.
    - joveian 10y ago
      They worked well for me, not eliminating my allergic response but significantly reducing it for about a decade after 2-3 years of shots. Note that the same treatment can be given via drops, a much less expensive option (but still considered off label use in the US). I haven't tried them (yet) but it seems like the research performed so far shows them to be just as effective (I'd guess also just as ineffective if the shots don't work for you).
Apocryphon 10y ago
How did you develop heavy metal poisoning, and what clued you to it in the first place? Did you develop the sudden allergies after chemical exposure?
rsync 10y ago
"A few years ago I was diagnosed with a case of chronic heavy-metal poisoning." If you don't mind, I wonder if you could explain how the heavy metal poisoning occurred ? Genuinely interested.
hga 10y ago
Hmmm, I have bad allergies and was born and raised in Joplin, MO, a lead and zinc mining town until after WWII, and like everyone else born in the early '60s was exposed to tetraethyllead in gasoline until it started to be phased out in the mid-70s. Then again, I clearly got this from my mother who is in some ways worse (stays indoors during ragweed season, which doesn't bother me at all), my problems largely disappeared when I moved to the Boston area (different climate and allergens), returned when I moved to the D.C. area (very roughly the same as Joplin). But I'll think about this, I've never had a test for lead....

cylinder 10y ago

What is the best test and type of specialist to determine if you have metal poisoning? I'm glad you are feeling better.

xenophonf 10y ago

I vaguely recall reading something on Usenet or something that would have made it onto Slashdot or Plastic in the late 90s/early 00s, where someone treated their allergies or asthma or something by deliberately infecting themselves with a parasitic worm---I forget which, maybe hookworm. They actually went to so far as to cultivate the worm in some medium that they could apply to their stomach using a custom-made patch, started pooping oocytes, and then completed the usual treatment course for whatever it was they infected themselves with. I can't recall if it cleared up the condition from which they were suffering, and obviously, this wasn't any kind of controlled trial. Lord knows that such a study would give an IRB six fits, and rightly so!

dzhiurgis 10y ago
What is Plastic?
- xenophonf 10y ago
  Oh you sweet summer child, who never got to experience Suck.com or Plastic in their (respective) heydays. Your world is objectively poorer as a result, but least the Brunching Shuttlecocks is still online!
  - josephmx 10y ago
    Look how special, important, and better you are as a result of being 10 years older than a random stranger :)
    - rsync 10y ago
      I would argue that experiencing suck.com, in it's time and element, was a very unique and valuable experience.
    - xenophonf 10y ago
      Older, yes, but sadly, the wisdom I expected to attend age has not yet appeared. :)
    - xenophonf 10y ago
      Aw, you people downvoted this? It was the perfect take-down to my damn-kids-get-off-my-lawn comment. Sorry, @josephmx. :(
      - josephmx 10y ago
        I'm sure I'll live, thanks though :)
  - dzhiurgis 10y ago
    I was on Slashdot for a while, but I assume those were few years older. I also missed out on newsgroups and BBSes, poor me :) Is it more of a reddit than HN of the time?

bbcbasic 10y ago

Wow. How did you get poisioned if you don't mind me asking? And what was the miracle?

StavrosK 10y ago

Wait, how the hell did you get heavy metal poisoning?

daveguy 10y ago
Possibly mercury from dental amalgum. Those "silver" fillings are approximately 50% mercury: http://www.fda.gov/MedicalDevices/ProductsandMedicalProcedures/DentalProducts/DentalAmalgam/ucm171094.htm http://www.fda.gov/MedicalDevices/ProductsandMedicalProcedur... Generally inert in place and it has to be inhaled to be absorbed. However, drilling/removal/chipping can release absorbable particles. Edit: Also note -- because they are inert in place so advice from the FDA is to leave them be as long as the fillings are in good condition and there is no decay beneath the filling. In other words -- don't panic and take an ice pick to your perfectly good fillings.
VLM 10y ago
I didn't see a response. Fish are very good at accumulating and concentrating biologically active mercury. My state DNR has all kinds of pamphlets along the general topic of less than one serving per week of inland lake caught fish puts you at risk of lack of omega-3 acids and more than one serving per week puts you at significant risk of mercury poisoning. And they helpfully suggest women who could become pregnant only eat certain species like once per month at most. So at camp eating fish, if you're a woman you can eat half a decades worth of contaminated fish in a couple days. Some of the advice is crazy, or spooky. Women under 50 should eat less than one can of tuna per month according to my state DNR. I work with a low carb person who eats a can of tuna per day every day for lunch. Their blood mercury level must be off the charts. Like they could use the veins in their arm as a mercury thermometer or something.
- rudolf0 10y ago
  ...Couldn't you just supplement omega 3 pills (fish oil or algae oil) and not eat the contaminated fish?
  - cyounkins 10y ago

Diederich 10y ago

Thank you for sharing this. Can you share how you were exposed to apparently toxic levels of heavy-metals?

SEJeff 10y ago
Likely too much Black Sabbath on his pandora playlist.
- Cthulhu_ 10y ago
  There's no such thing as too much Black Sabbath.
- somedangedname 10y ago
  You were downvoted for this but I believe that your cause is just.

sageikosa 10y ago

My teenage daughter developed peanut allergies in her mid teens while traveling with a drum corps one summer. She had noticed how ill she was feeling and systematically cut out foods until she narrowed the peanut butter sandwiches (she had been an avid peanut butter eater for years before). When she got back from tour and was tested she was confirmed for strong peanut allergies and had to carry an epi-pen. However, after about a year she got tested again and now had no reaction. I still attribute this to something else was in her system that triggered reaction in conjunction with the peanut proteins.

brookside 10y ago
Did she play a brass instrument by chance? Some mouthpieces are leaded brass. Also some players also have reaction to brass.
- sageikosa 10y ago
  Timpani. She played a flute also, but not over the summer. Every time I mention this people kind of look at me funny when I offer my co-trigger explanation as "some kind of bug", but I was reading Dawkins at the time and had come to stop thinking about unitary causes for phenotypic expressions. Of course, that's not the easiest course of conversation to travel down with most people, so I just sort of accept the silence that follows. It does give me the fun little anecdote of how my daughter was deathly allergic to peanuts for a year, but then she got better.
  - jaggederest 10y ago
    I feel like there are probably similar cotriggers for many chronic illnesses. The classic example is H. Pylori in stomach problems. I doubt that it's a lone outlier.
lucaspiller 10y ago
I was born and raised in the countryside and lived in the same house until I was 18. When I was around 11 I developed severe hay fever out of nowhere. It's not like I wasn't exposed to pollen before, as I was a typical country kid running around in fields and such. The doctor issued me the usual antihistamines, but they didn't really help so I just sucked it up every summer. When I was 17 I started wearing contact lenses - and after that no more hay fever. I thought at first the contact lenses were blocking the pollen from getting into my eyes, but I've now reverted back to almost always wearing glasses. 10 years later and no more hay fever. Go figure...

pjc50 10y ago

Interesting. This is definitely an industrial-era problem that would explain why allergies are seemingly more prevalent. I wonder if it could also apply to gluten 'sensitivity'? Whereabouts do you think the mercury came from - food or water? (See also the recent discussions around lead including in Flint, Michigan)

daemin 10y ago

Since we're talking about anecdotes and allergies, I've heard multiple people (body building enthusiasts let's say) that they lost their hayfever allergies after taking a course of body-building steroids. I know from experience that taking steroids reduces the immune system response, so there is something to that.

PeterisP 10y ago
The prescription drugs for some types of allergies and asthma are a form of steroids.
- davak 10y ago
  Typically those are different types of steroids though. Anti allergy steroids are called the "body's universal solvent" because of all the side effects including muscle weakness and fat gain. Anabolic steroids work on a different pathway. Of note some of modern human allergies come from infant avoidance. Kids who eat peanuts younger are less likely to get peanut allergies for example. If you want to decrease allergies, let your infants get dirty, play with dogs, and liberalize their diet.
  - tsmarsh 10y ago
    Again, anecdote, science of 1... but that can't be universally the case because of me. I'm Gen X (1979), grew up playing in dirt, house filled with dogs and cats. Ate a fair amount of things, apart from the things I was allergic too: apples mostly. Most of the food I ate was home cooked. My sisters do not have allergies. It has since gone on to get much, much worse. I can no longer eat carrots or parsnips (which were my favourite). I'm now very allergic to dogs and cats and it wasn't because of a lack of exposure.
  - Bombthecat 10y ago
    Grow partly up on a farm. Drunk raw milk. Self made quark and Joghurt. Played with young horses and cows. Played in haystack etc etc. 40 allergies. Fuck me...

rudolf0 10y ago

Would heavy mental poisoning not appear in a standard blood test?

James001 10y ago
no, most standard blood tests are surprisingly limited.
hospes 10y ago
Normally when you go to the dr's office with allergies none is trying to find heavy metal poisoning. A lot of times they do not even perform regular blood work, they just do tests for allergies and prescribe meds to address symptoms (like antihistamines or steroids, or both). With certain types of airborne allergies (like dust mite allergies or pollen allergies) they can also offer immunotherapy (allergy shots) as a treatment. They inject gradually increasing doses of allergen which leads to development of immunity or tolerance to the allergen. Immunotherapy is the only available treatment for airborne allergies at this point, it is more than 100 years old and takes several years of injections to complete it and a lot of times it is not very effective.
- douche 10y ago
  Do allergy shots actually work in any measurable fashion? I had weekly shots for years as a child, to try to counter some crippling dust and pet allergies, but the only effect I ever experienced was feeling miserable for six days out of the week, and finally having the crap washed out of my system by the seventh day, just in time to get shot up again. On the other hand, after puberty and a serious illness in my late teens that basically rebooted my immune system, I haven't had any issues with allergies ever since.
  - joveian 10y ago
    They worked well for me, not eliminating my allergic response but significantly reducing it for about a decade after 2-3 years of shots. Note that the same treatment can be given via drops, a much less expensive option (but still considered off label use in the US). I haven't tried them (yet) but it seems like the research performed so far shows them to be just as effective (I'd guess also just as ineffective if the shots don't work for you).

Apocryphon 10y ago

How did you develop heavy metal poisoning, and what clued you to it in the first place? Did you develop the sudden allergies after chemical exposure?

rsync 10y ago

"A few years ago I was diagnosed with a case of chronic heavy-metal poisoning." If you don't mind, I wonder if you could explain how the heavy metal poisoning occurred ? Genuinely interested.

hga 10y ago

Hmmm, I have bad allergies and was born and raised in Joplin, MO, a lead and zinc mining town until after WWII, and like everyone else born in the early '60s was exposed to tetraethyllead in gasoline until it started to be phased out in the mid-70s. Then again, I clearly got this from my mother who is in some ways worse (stays indoors during ragweed season, which doesn't bother me at all), my problems largely disappeared when I moved to the Boston area (different climate and allergens), returned when I moved to the D.C. area (very roughly the same as Joplin). But I'll think about this, I've never had a test for lead....