Talk:Argyria

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Some of the text in this article was originally copied from http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxprofiles/phs146.html which as a work of a U.S. Federal Government agaency without any other copyright notice should be in the public domain.

Blue Krishna

Lord Krishna, the blue-skinned Deity in Hindu mythology is described as having turned blue after consuming a quantity of poisoned river water in order to save humanity. Seeing as most myths have some grounding in real-life individuals, maybe Krishna could be mentioned as a possible high-profile argyria candidate? Throquzum (talk) 21:33, 19 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

NPOV in intro paragraph?

The current intro paragraph reads like something written by a colloidal silver salesman:

"The condition is believed to be permanent, but laser therapy may be helpful. Most recent cases are due to the consumption of home-made silver products, and almost all of these cases, in turn, involved production techniques which are generally considered incorrect by colloidal-silver producers."

No references. Just a claim that sufferers were doing something wrong, implying that "professionally" made CS is safe.

you are right. no reference given.

origin of argyria, "rare"

Claims that argyria may only occur after ingestion of silver compounds and not after ingestion of elementar silver or silverdusts are false. Many articles published in peer-reviewed scientific journals demonstrate it clearly. If needed, i can leave a list of articles or links to them on this page. Redecke 13:04, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC) I'll work on it. Pub Med has dozens, well-researched and published in peer-reviewed journals. I removed the phrase "extremely rare" as both unreferrenced and meaningless. If you ingest enough silver, you can develop argyria. Pustelnik (talk) 17:17, 24 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Blue-gray skin and that's it?

That actually sounds cool. I'm surprised it isn't a popular body-modification trend.

That's it? What about DYING? That probably accounts for the unpopularity of purposely contracting argyria. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.200.157.132 (talk) 03:44, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Even too much water can kill you (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_intoxication) but it seems silly to call silver a poison simply because it turns your skin blue-grey. After all if skin colour is the only factor why not call skin that has been tanned bronze-brown by the suns light a discolouration or medical condition caused by too much melanin to be deposited in the skin due to exposure to the sun’s radiation? You could call it melaninitis and then say that people who get a tan purposely contract this condition :D

For this reason I would recommend removing silver from the Toxic metals section in Wikipedia’s Poisoning and Toxicity template (which is where I came to this article by the way). While it may be able to kill you in sufficiently high quantities, so can other metals like iron, copper etc. which are even necessary in human physiology in proper quantities. Only metals that are inherently toxic even in low quantities like lead, cadmium etc. should be there.

-24.226.49.141 (talk) 14:08, 3 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I'm just saying, this seems a lot more pleasant than getting a tattoo, with fewer risks. I don't look good blue, but if'n I did... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.72.21.221 (talk) 00:20, 25 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

some references

Concerning the minimal amount of silver (to ingest) for becoming argyric:

Scientific refenrences:

argyria may occur after ingestion of 1.4 gr of silver over several month (silver nitrate in one particular case), 1.5 gr of silver within 14 days, up to 124 gr after 9 years and 200 gr after 10 month. (see Hill 1939, Wadhera 2005). Some scientist believes that argyria may come up after ingestion of only 1 gr silver (national health administration of Canada). Research on 70 cases of argyria by Gaud und Staud (1935) showed that the minimal amount of silver that induced argyria was 1.8 grams. Hill und Pillsbury think in 1939 that a total dose of 1 - 8 gr of inhaled silver dust may induce argyria and they say: ..The minimum amount of silver known to cause argyria in adults, from the use of any silver compound (including salts) is 900 mg of silver taken orally in one year". US-EPA writes: argyria is believed to occur at a total body burden of approximately 1 g Ag and above (EPA-440/4-81-017 (1981) 160 p).

People eating a huge number of Jintan Silver Pills breath freshener, a herbal product with silver coat 0,1 mg Ag / pill (at least 10 cases known and published in scientific journals) got argyria.

Local argyrosis cccured after: long time use of acupuncture-needles (Tanita 1985, Suzuki 1993, Takeishi 2002, Yamashita 2001) silvercontaining suture material silver earrings (van den Nieuwenhuijsen IJ 1988, Hendricks 1991, Sugden 2001) [4] silver "tattoo" around teeth, (seldom) after drilling work on silver amalgam fillings eye-argyrosis occured secondary to occupational silver soldering Redecke 00:39, 5 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The anonymous editor (you?) to this sentence, just striking what's overstricken here, made no sense:

" Studies in rats show that drinking water containing very large amounts of silver (~~9.8~~ grams of silver per U.S. gallon water or ~~2.6 grams~~ per liter) is likely to be life-threatening."

Of course, the sentence before then made no sense either. It would need not only the concentration of that solution, but how much of the solution at that concentration was ingested, to make any sense.

I have no problem if you take the whole thing out, pending provision of a source for the information, and the relevance of threatening the life of rats to the discussion at hand. Gene Nygaard 01:00, 5 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

what i want to say is: we are not rats. and indeed: a concentration makes no sense of course. i do not know who wrote sentence that first... argyria is not life-threatening. we should talk about toxicology of silver on silver and not here. michael Redecke 02:15, 5 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

argyria.info is full of lies

I find it utterly sick that www.Argyria.info is one of the external links provided. The site is a dis-information site by peddlers of colloidal silver made in an attempt to cover up the dangers of their quack medicine. The FDA has found that though effective concentrations of silver colloids are not safe, and safe concentrations are not effective.

The site gives next to no information about argyria; the entire page is one ranting defense of colloidal silver raising FUD about how "they" don't want you to know about it. It has no bibliography, and lacks any academic credibility; it is no better than a personal rant.

If anyone here remembers the bad old days when silver colloids poisoned our rivers due to dumping by the photographic film industry (back before digital photography decimated the industry), you would remember the disasterous effects of exposure to silver colloids. This is not to say that silver particles don't inhibit bacterial growth: they do, but it is erroneous to extrapolate from this and think that you can ingest silver colloids and have the same effect. Alcohol also kills bacteria, but if you inferred that you could ingest alcohol and kill bacterial infections, you'd be eligible for the Darwin award. The concentrations of alcohol that you'd have to ingest to kill an infection would kill you first. The same applies to colloidal silver. All support for medicinal use of colloidal silver out there comes from anecdotal accounts, but double-blind medical studies and health disasters such as poor victims of silver medicine quackery blow away any notion that silver medicine is safe nor effective.

Hello Berkana ! website argyria.info is owned by a well known colloidal-silver selling company in Utopia/Texas. Redecke 12:38, 17 June 2006 (UTC)[reply]

What studies? Why aren't the results of the studies ever described. Do they even exist. All I can see once all the yelling is filtered out is that benign accumulations of silver occur in parts of the body and the skin takes on a grayish tint. Oh, and big pharma might not make as much money. What exactly are the "disastrous effects of exposure to silver colloids"? How come they are never described? Usually when the argument degenerates to histrionics, somebody has a monetary interest in the outcome---are you working for a pharmaceutical? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.251.57.57 (talk) 23:44, 29 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

argyria reversal

Source #1, the link about argyria reversal, is a dead link. Someone should fix this. Gary (talk) 02:19, 20 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

It can't be permanent can it? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.72.21.221 (talk) 03:07, 10 January 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Video footage of an EXTREME sufferer:

Wow! Another colloidal silver enthusiast turns blue. This is the most extreme case I've heard of:

http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/player/popup/?rn=3906861&cl=5573716&ch=4226726&src=news

SteveBaker (talk) 16:23, 20 December 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Logtim blog from another "(dis)satisfied user" of colloidal silver products:

http://www.together.net/~rjstan/rose1.html —Preceding unsigned comment added by JMBrouillet (talk • contribs) 19:38, 6 February 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Are there any pictures of people with this condition? I vaguely recall a US politician or celebrity having this condition. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 219.89.9.242 (talk) 04:32, 17 March 2008 (UTC)[reply]

That would be Stan Jones. Stonemason89 (talk) 01:57, 10 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Silver Toxicity

Silver intoxication - Argyria - http://coseinteressanti.altervista.org/gold_silver.pdf

References in History Section

There seems to be a couple of paragraphs full of stated facts in the History section without a single reference. It would be nice to see some of these statements backed up with some evidence of their factuality.

What the machnism of turning blue

You didnt contain the most important information what is: why exactly skin turns blue, what is the biological mechanism of that? I'm not medicine doc so I dont know wheter the mechanism is known. But I would be really curiouse what are the hypothesis —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.151.115.9 (talk) 09:53, 22 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Silver is deposited under the skin as nanoparticles, which are as a rule much darker in color than bulk silver (and often bluish, as well). Stonemason89 (talk) 17:57, 8 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

My understanding is that the silver particles tarnish eventually, exactly like silver trophies etc will tarnish, and this results in the grey colour. If you have enough partcles concentrated in a particular patch of skin, the dark colour becomes visible from the outside. Wdford (talk) 07:25, 9 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Both may be true; the article on silver nanoparticles states: While frequently described as being 'silver' some are composed of a large percentage of silver oxide due to their large ratio of surface to bulk silver atoms. So you're probably right. Stonemason89 (talk) 01:52, 10 June 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Does this protect against sunburns?

Could silver work as a replacement for melanin, perhaps in people with albinism (or simply people who have the misfortune of being fair-skinned and thus more prone to sunburns and skin cancer)? I know it looks "weird" (grey, or blue-grey, instead of brown). But if the only other option is to risk getting (potentially deadly) melanoma, then maybe it wouldn't be so bad? Not that I would consider taking it myself, mind. Stonemason89 (talk) 19:53, 17 December 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Pictures and Same Photo

Why is the only reference to a sufferer of Argyria the same old man? If this condition is such a concern, why is there only reference to this one individual?

Intentionally causing Argyria

I believe this article needs more information on the exact amounts needed to ingest daily to successfully cause argyria without poisoning oneself too much. Some of us actually want this and the lack of information on this subject is disappointing... 72.133.52.39 (talk)

Vandalism (made up myth)

I removed the following paragraph

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Argyria&action=historysubmit&diff=474599148&oldid=467650172

because (for multiple reasons), this "myth" is almost certainly vandalism. (For example, Athena was a virgin.) If not, some reference of that myth in the corpus of greek mythology could have been found.

The paragraph in question had been introduced via the following edit:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Argyria&diff=prev&oldid=444105158

That user's only contributions were three edits to this article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.136.60.53 (talk) 16:29, 2 February 2012 (UTC)[reply]

csfacts website

The website http://www.csfacts.com/pages/jones.html is used four times in the bit about Stan Jones. Is there any evidence that this is a reliable source for anything? It seems to be just a collection of largely pro-silver ingestion commentary and advertisements for cs products. If nobody objects I will remove it as a source and replace what I can from the abc and telegraph stories which are reliable.Desoto10 (talk) 03:20, 18 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Picture

The picture being used here is extremely misleading if it is indeed true that Argyria causes no peripheral symptoms. At the very least, someone needs to explain why the man in the picture is severely malnourished if not for the Argyria. Otherwise, let's find a depiction of a different person suffering from the disease. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.40.69.215 (talk) 20:04, 25 February 2013 (UTC)[reply]