"Hay fever" from saw dust?

[tea lady]

Did some sanding WITH dust mask ON today. Didn't die.

[dazzler]

Dads nose used to bleed if he worked with camphor laurel even with his mask on

[wheelinround]

Tea Lady its not funny last week when visiting a turners club I suffered badly ended up could hardly talk the members turn heaps of plain old Maple donated from workshops.

Its never caused a problem before it may have just been the volume of it a dozen fellows all turning pretty much the same stuff. Na hour after leaving no problem.

Try some honey great antihistamine you can even add it to the tea......now there's a thought its not dust landing in your tea is it.

[tea lady]

Tea Lady its not funny last week when visiting a turners club I suffered badly ended up could hardly talk the members turn heaps of plain old Maple donated from workshops.

Its never caused a problem before it may have just been the volume of it a dozen fellows all turning pretty much the same stuff. Na hour after leaving no problem.

Try some honey great antihistamine you can even add it to the tea......now there's a thought its not dust landing in your tea is it.

Tea dust.Uuuuuh! No.

An hour after leaving no problem? Gee, it took me 2-3 days to recover. But then I'm real sensitive. May just amount of dust was the problem for you rather than chemical reaction.

Was thinking over the weekend, perhaps I was effected before but I never connected the sanding and the sneezing. Had a dry cough end of last year, which I just thought was some strange disease going round. The "honey guy" at the market on the weekend reckoned if you got hay fever you should eat the local honey to desensitize yourself. Kinda makes sense, as honey would be made out of all the plants growing round you that are busily making pollen to make you sneeze. Maybe just a marketing ploy?

[jow104]

Tea Lady, I recall on a visit to Oz seeing pollen falling like rain from trees around this time of the year.
Any chance you have been exposed to this occurence?

[tea lady]

You really don't want it to be the wood do you. 'Fraid it is. I don't really get effected by pollen. We are surrounded by gums and in summer the place smells like honey. But it doesn't make me sneeze. (Funny. I thought euchatypt honey just smelt like honey, but it smells like Gum blossom. Go figure!.)

[bitingmidge]

Was thinking over the weekend, perhaps I was effected before but I never connected the sanding and the sneezing. Had a dry cough end of last year, which I just thought was some strange disease going round.

That's the one.

My shed's never immaculate, but I have the dusty going, the airfilter running the whole time I'm there, wear a mask when I'm doing dusty stuff as opposed to shavey stuff, and I always sweep/vacuum as I go.

I've found that walking through dust and spreading it round the place just means you breath more of it too.

Cheers,

P

[Bleedin Thumb]

In 2002 while I was making a large desk out of MDF I lost my sense of smell for 6 weeks, couldn't taste anything properly -

.

I haven't had a sense of smell since about 2002!

Chronic perennial allergic rhinitis its called. If I don't take my antihistamine's every day i wouldn't be able to function.

I suspect it may be side effect of working in a glass house in my youth where they would inject chemicals into the misting system.

[Shedgirl]

Tealady, as soon as you described your symptoms, blackwood sprung (sprang? springed?) to mind, and sure enough, there it was on the list. Does the same to me. Also makes my lips go numb.
Wear the dust mask. Even though it's annoying, uncomfortable and makes you sweat in a corrugated iron shed on a hot day and you look like an extra from Alien or The Young Doctors (oops, my vintage is showing), WEAR THE DUST MASK!!! And shower as soon as you go inside.

[MGR]

I've just read a book "Workshop dust control" by Sandor Nagyszalansczy (ordered via Amazon). What else could a bloke called Sandor do but write a book on sawdust control !!!

His strategies are similar to the others suggested on this thread.
- Use personal respiratory protection (mask or respirator)
- Ventilate the workspace
- Use air filtration (home made or purchased)
- Shop vacuum with appropriate filter
- Dust extraction (if you have it or can afford it) either portable or centrally installed
- Good housekeeping e.g. scoop up dust & shavings rather than recirculate them via sweeping & vacuum up accumulated dust
- Minimise dust creation if you can e.g. use a cabinet scraper rather than sandpaper where possible

The book is a good overview of dust control issues for woodworkers & includes plans for building your own air filtration device and setting up a dust collection system. Cost was US$15 plus postage. My kids think it's possibly the dullest topic for a book in entire history of the human race, but there you are . . .

Mike

[tea lady]

I've just read a book "Workshop dust control" by Sandor Nagyszalansczy (ordered via Amazon). What else could a bloke called Sandor do but write a book on sawdust control !!!

My kids think it's possibly the dullest topic for a book in entire history of the human race, but there you are . . .

Mike

That's because they still think that they are invincible and old age and inconvenient things like that only happens to boring people.

Will investigate dust control things. Studio/shed is now more like a studio/shed rather that car port, so dust control a possibility. Also going to start teaching pottery classes so will need to be more serious about that stuff.

[rsser]

Sensitivity can increase over time which makes diagnosis difficult sometimes.

Ie. occasional exposure, no drama, with further exposure the intensity of the reaction increases.

And there's no going back.

[tea lady]

I use to get very bad hay fever, then I had a baby. Now don't seem to be effected as much. Not an option for some I guess. There's got to be an up side to being a girl.

[rsser]

Hay fever is one variety of an allergic reaction, yes?

One thing you could do is an elimination test: to try separately each of the woods that were in the initial mix of catalysts so you're clear on which was toxic for you.

There are other toxic effects too unfortunately, like dermatitis, nasal cancer and so on.

For some depressing reading:

http://www.hobbithouseinc.com/person.../_toxicity.htm
http://www.ubeaut.com.au/badwood.htm
http://oak.arch.utas.edu.au/tbia/vie...?articleID=316
http://www.hobbywoods.com/wood_toxicity.htm
http://www.woodturnerssocietyofqld.com/id6.html

The American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists recommended in 1996 that wood dust be classified an A1 carcinogen - on par with asbestos (source: Fine Woodworking, April 1996, p. 114).

Since 1992, California authorities have ruled that there is no safe level of exposure to formaldehyde. Link between formaldehyde (from composite wood products) and nose/throat cancer:
http://www.arb.ca.gov/toxics/compwoo...factsheet4.pdf

Links
http://www.woodturner.org/resources/toxicity.cfm

[tea lady]

Yes. All very depressing. I read somewhere also that some woods hard high silica content, so you can get silicosis as well. Think I'll just where dust mask all the time. (Sigh.) I had a friend who worked as a pattern maker. He never had dust masks or anything. Use to get dust and shavings everywhere, and joke that you weren't a wood worker until you had sawdust in every pore. Guess he thought it was harmless because its natural. (He's not dead yet or anything. Fittest bloody retired bloke you've ever seen. So no sad ending to that tale.)