A FEW WORDS OF WARNING!

I recently had a reaction to epoxy, all my fault I hope. I was working in a heated room with basically no ventilation, wearing zero protective gear, 'nuff said on the dumazz aspect.....

BUT, to make matters much worse, I was using acetone both as a thinner & cleaning agent. If I got epoxy on my hands, I would wipe them with a rag wet with acetone. DON'T DO IT!! Acetone is a solvent that shares some properties with another solvent called DMSO. Two of them being that they can penetrate membranes (read skin/cell walls), & carry foreign agents through those membranes with them. Without realizing it, I was "injecting" myself with epoxy, ca & whatever else was on my hands at the time. I'm sure there are some other common solvents out there we deal with that have some of the same properties, read up on what you are using & wear some gloves & a mask of some sort. I felt like crap for about 2 weeks, no energy, no appetite, irregular, low grade headache, numb/tingling fingertips (my tipoff (- , & finally all the skin on all my fingertips peeling off. Not something I want to repeat, hope this info keeps someone healthier.

DMSO does have medical uses, as well as being an industrial solvent & a byproduct of the wood pulp industry. It is an antiinflammatory, as well a potential delivery system for medicines without breaking the skin or risking infection.

Good information. Sorry you ended up being the example of what not to do. Hope you are doing better!

Dick Tyndall

i believe you fall in to catagory #7 -

7. This child has been working with glue too much.

I made that choice before I SOLD btw

Thanks for the heads up.I've done pretty much the same thing only in a vented room. I'll watch out from now on.

El Zorro said:

Good information. Sorry you ended up being the example of what not to do. Hope you are doing better!

Dick Tyndall

Click to expand...

Thanx Dick, i feel "normal"now. Shoulda known better, i used dmso back in the early 80's on my bum knee. That was when i learned about acetone's properties, too long ago what with crs & all - LOL!

Andy Greene said:

i believe you fall in to catagory #7 -

7. This child has been working with glue too much.

I made that choice before I SOLD btw

Click to expand...

Justly deserved, Drew. Touche (-;

moparbarn said:

Andy Greene said:

i believe you fall in to catagory #7 -

7. This child has been working with glue too much.

I made that choice before I SOLD btw

Click to expand...

Justly deserved, Drew. Touche (-;

Click to expand...

You KNEW I was gonna bust chops back - or did the fumes cloud the RRR's

Seriously though , i hope your felling better , you know better , me on the other hand .

Call ya tomorrow .

Good to know, because I have been building quite a bit lately

Grimracer and I have both posted in the past about ventilating, ventilating, VENTALATING WHEN USING EPOXY!!!!!!! Unlike polyester products, epoxy has little to no odor, so people do not take enough precautions when using epoxy. The same problems exist with CA, except it smells. I have been building boats with epoxy for too many years and have become a fanatic about ventilation and dust protection. Ask my son Mike about that. When using epoxy, always wear nitrile or latex disposable gloves. If you get epoxy on your skin it can be removed safely with Fast Orange soap!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Want to be in the express lane to the ER, or a cancer patient in your future, just keep loading yourself up with a chemical cocktail in the workshop. Enough preaching!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Using a heat gun and Super Glue will kill just as quick .

Thanks Jerry for keeping the word going. It has just about ruined RC boating for me (all my epoxy hobbys truth be told)..

Very hard to work on boats now.. I have to have somebody else do the work for me or wait for summer and I STILL have to ware my space suit. I cannot even be around JB weld when its curing.

HEED ALL WARNINGS

Grimracer

My main intent with this thread was to make folks aware of the dangers of solvents (acetone in particular), & their ability to deliver compounds/chemicals transdermally. You aren't wiping it ALL off, some of the stuff is being transferred through your skin by the solvent!! The ability of these solvents to penetrate membranes WITHOUT breaking them down is what makes them a solvent. Any & all safety precautions should be taken at all times!! But no amount of protection will help if you "clean up" with an agent that will transfer the harmful chemicals internally, through your skin, without ever cutting or breaking the surface. DO NOT use solvents on your skin!! They don't stay outside your body......nor does what you're attempting to remove, or what may already be on the rag you just picked up (-;

Humm really got me thinking .when i had my last reaction from painting .i used acetone to clean the gun and as a final wash

Acetone travels from one hand to the other in 90 seconds, also lodges in bone marrow.I've used it plenty, but it's scary stuff

Kinda makes you wonder why the FDA approved 90% acetone as "Finger Nail Polish Remover"??

Later!!

Pat

Patrick Mulvany said:

Kinda makes you wonder why the FDA approved 90% acetone as "Finger Nail Polish Remover"??

Later!!

Pat

Click to expand...

Money!!!!

Sorry to hear you had to go through that Robin.

I learned this stuff the HARD WAY 23 years ago and it has taken that long to detox myself enough to where my nervous system and other body functions are getting closer to normal.

We work/play with a lot of really bad stuff. Be careful!!

Prolong exposure to epoxies and solvents without protection also causes permanent, irreverseable damage to the nervous system. Just one of the many things that contribute to neuropathy. Some of the symptoms are dizzyness, weakness, numbness, pain, irregular heartbeat and so on.

Not much that can treat the symptoms without many serious side-effects.

I was diagnosed with it about 20 years ago after several heart attacks. Not the only reason for the heart problems but certainly contributed to it.

Play Carefully,

Charles

Charles Perdue said:

Prolong exposure to epoxies and solvents without protection also causes permanent, irreverseable damage to the nervous system. Just one of the many things that contribute to neuropathy. Some of the symptoms are dizzyness, weakness, numbness, pain, irregular heartbeat and so on.

Not much that can treat the symptoms without many serious side-effects.

I was diagnosed with it about 20 years ago after several heart attacks. Not the only reason for the heart problems but certainly contributed to it.

Play Carefully,

Charles

Click to expand...

I had all of those symptoms plus many more. 15 to 23 years ago I went to the ER many times because I thought I was having a heart attack. I was only 35 and was in good physical shape. Every single time they told be there was nothing wrong with my heart.

My nervous system was in bad shape. Totally whacked out! Thoughts and feeling went through my head that I would never wish on anyone. It was scary bad.

My speech was slowed as was my thought processing. I had panic attacks several times a week and I was sure I was going to die every time.

I was so sensitive I could not walk into a new car showroom, ride in a new car, get near a newly painted r/c boat. I could not even go into Home Depot or Walmart

(out-gassing print and formaldehyde from packaging) without it setting me off. Sometimes even a room with new carpet or furnishing would make my head spin and my hands shake.

It took me two years to identify the source of my problem, thanks to the help of a great r/c boater who listened to me on the phone for hours. I went to several types of doctors. None had an answer other than "we have a drug". I told them No drugs for me!

It took me several years to identify the individual sources. Many of them had different effects on me. Synthetic oil, CA, Epoxy, different plastics, bug spray and herbicides, soaps and other personal hygiene products....the list goes on and on!...even certain FOOD! The food that has many chemical additives. Even Veggies from a salad bar would sometimes mess with me too....the chemicals they use to retard spoilage?

1993 was my worst year.

Thankfully, It IS reversible! I could not have lived like that for too long. I would have taken myself out. It really was that bad! I had Sick feelings and Thoughts that made me want to jump out of my skin so could run away from them. It takes YEARS of clean eating, clean environment and avoiding the many chemicals.

I am much less sensitive now, but 20 years ago even a woman's perfume would make me lethargic, blur my vision and dull my thinking.

Irritability, something that was not normally for me, was another big problem. The experience made me realize the people who are easily irritated are probably dealing with a toxin.

I could never get in bed without a shower. Even if I thought I was perfectly clean. When I did I would just lay there, feeling edgy, legs and feet twitching and unable to sleep. Finally I would get up, take a shower, then back to bed and sleep fine.

I certainly would have been a candidate for some kind of Disability, but that is not my style and I did not want them to make a medical test subject out of me.

Instead I fought my way through it...an on going 23 year process and somehow managed to create some pretty good r/c boat stuff along the way.

In the end, the one thing that made the positive difference for me was to NOT except the drugs. The drugs would have smoothed over my symptoms and I would have continued eating Imron paint, epoxy, CA, prop and other metal dust, acetone...ect, for lunch until I was totally past the point of no return. Because, as the docs where quick to offer drugs that "can help" they had no clue as to what was the cause of my problem. Even after I had told a couple of them the kind of chemicals that I worked with.

I too am sensitized to anything volitile. I made a bad mistake and painted an 1/8 scale dummy engine with Testers Dope and hovered my head above the paint. It still has a bad effect on me and took 8 months to be able to think clearly. Be SUPER CAREFUL with all the stuff we use in our hobby.

I sank that I still mah have sum drain bamage.....