OOPSIE
Since getting the Violation Notice, I have been hard at work repairing and restoring the exterior of the Carriage House.
During these months I have been having a deep relationship with…
…lead paint.
This is a classic toxic relationship.
I have been taking the standard precautions and have not exhibited the normal physical responses to too much lead exposure. Still, one should never be casual about lead. So, I had a blood test.
I now know that 3.5 is normal. Anything above 5 is considered a concern.
And mine?
13.4.
Oh. Oh fuck. OH FUCK!
I asked the medical person what 13.4 meant.
- Was this a cause for concern but not too bad?
- Was this really bad but with luck and time maybe something I could recover from?
- Was it necessary to create a will, STAT?
She did not know.
FUCK.
My initial panic soon subsided…somewhat…when I went to an official government website about lead poisoning.
Oh. Really bad numbers are between 40-80.
Oh. So 13.4 seems like a cause for concern but not too bad. I think. It may be like Stage 1 cancer. Bad, but you will likely be OK. I think.
The next good news is that at 13.4, if my exposure to lead stops, my body will leach out the lead over time. There is a good chance there will be no permanent damage.
Rest assured though, I am taking this VERY seriously.
Since getting the news I have not gone near any of the old paint on the Carriage House. This explains why I removed the scaffolding and blue tarp. Because, for now, my #1 priority is to reduce my lead levels.
This kind of stripper is the best way to remove lead paint. It does not vaporize the lead (this is VERY bad), and does not create lead dust when removing the paint. Instead, the stripper causes the old paint to detach from the wood and this can be easily removed and contained by a plastic tarp.
I own such a stripper. But dropped it last year. Breaking it. In two days though the manufacturer will receive the broken stripper. They will repair and ship back to me.
Only then will I resume stripping paint on the main west facade. I will also wear the standard mask (which I have been doing) and a full Tyvek suit (which I have not been doing. Instead, I have been changing my shirt before going home after washing down my upper body).
In short, while I have been careful, I have not been careful enough.
Getting the Violation Notice was a big shock.
Getting this news was a big shock.
My plans now have…understandably…wholly changed:
- As noted, work will resume on the main west facade only after the stripper is back.
- Today, I hauled out of the garage Masonite siding intended for the exterior of the servant’s hall of the Cross House. I will use this around the entry door on the north narrow wall. Once installed and painted it looks just like the 1894 siding.
- I plan to cover the large north wall with…GASP!…white vinyl siding. I know! And I do not care right now. This will satisfy the Violation Notice and cause no additional harm to my body.
- I will so same on the east, rear wall. In several years, assuming my body has recovered, and with proper protection and procedures, I can remove the vinyl and properly restore these facades. Oh, and please do not tell anybody I will be installing vinyl.
Next month I will have another blood test.
I do not know how long it will take to get down to 3.5.
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Prayers and a hug for you. Take care of yourself!
When my house was painted they used wet scraping, suited up in filtered masks,tyvek suits, warning tape around area and plastic laid down covering foundation and 6 ft of ground . At end of day carefully folded up, put in plastic bags and taped shut. No sanding allowed. Contractor could be severely fined for not following rules. Been 12 yrs, paint has worn well. There is an electric scraper that if hooked up to shop vac with HEPA filter will safely remove paint down to bare wood. Use on flat surfaces, costs over $600. Yikes
Ross, it’s important that you don’t wear work clothes/shoes into your home. With tyvek shouldn’t be a problem. You have to be concerned with cross contamination. Hope all goes well.
Prayers to you and hope you make a full recovery. I did a little research on the subject, as you have as well most likely and I understand there are treatments for dealing with lead poisoning. Stay well, my friend!
Yikes. This is not happy news. But I’m glad you caught it before it got any worse. Hoping this doesn’t complicate your health long-term.
Does red wine help adults cope with lead poisoning? Let me know. I deliver when in town.
Oh boy….yea, take it seriously. My best wishes go out to you. Stay safe!
So good you’re aware and taking precautions. Wishing you a speedy detox!
Research miso as in miso soup, a chemist once told me it leaches toxins or heavy metals from the blood or something like that.
Wow. Something I had not considered watching you remove all that paint.
In my house I am more concerned with asbestos. Outside it was pretty much down to bare wood. Inside it is sealed under many layers of paint, mostly latex.
It does take a while to get the lead out. Care and patience will. Vinyl not ideal but it’s temporary and less toxic. Faster too. Since the trim was already chopped you won’t lose anything.
Looks like you’ve got a wait of 3 to 4 months at least. What the body can’t excrete in a few weeks can remain in the teeth and bones. Your levels aren’t that high, comparatively, and you don’t have symptoms that you know of. Your levels aren’t near high enough to warrant chelation.
To prevent absorption and release it to be excreted increase your consumption of calcium (and magnesium and stool softeners to balance), zinc and Vitamin D and C. Milk, yogurt , cheese, spinach, red meats, beans, peanut butter, cereal, oranges, green and red peppers. It’s August so pile on the lemonade.
If you get any blowback from the city regarding progress on the violations, show them your medical report re lead levels. You’ve more than demonstrated good faith and it’s August, over 100 degrees, plus you’re a senior so need to be careful working in the heat.
I was going to suggest a dietary remediation action plan also. A functional health doctor would have an excellent plan.
Good luck Ross.
I reread this today and am back to report a tiny typo, and perhaps a missed word. It’s in the fourth bullet point above: “I will so same on the east, rear wall.” I think this should read “I will DO THE same on the east, rear wall.”
As always, you may delete this comment after you fix that typo.
I was a Stained glass artist for 25 years, and even though I worked under a ventilation hood, I ended up with too much lead in my body too. My naturopath put me on chelation therapy, just taking some pills that would take the lead out. Worked pretty well. My lead level went way down.
Thank you, Jon. What was your lead level?
This is another of my long winded explanations of what remains in my memory twenty years after dealing with Maryland’s laws concerning landlord liability for lead poisoning in residential rental properties. The ideas that I am putting forward may be outdated, but this is what’s left in my memory of what my investigation at the time leads me to believe now.
I hope this gives you some piece of mind.
Many years ago, I had seven rental properties that were old houses. Due to the state of Maryland’s punitive lead paint law that has requirements that far exceed the federal guidelines, I studied up on the details of the repercussions from tenants’ lead exposure.
This is from memory and it’s been around twenty years since I learned this at which time I took the necessary steps to remove the lead paint and had all of my properties certified lead free.
1. As I recall, the lead bonds to human cells in the place of calcium and iron.
2. A healthy adult is rarely impacted by high levels of lead in their blood except in the case of a pregnant woman. Children under a certain age are building new cells all of the time, many of which are brain cells. Lead in the blood is permanently bonding in parts of the cells which require iron and calcium to operate properly. The cells of mothers to be are being depleted of calcium and iron by the needs of the developing fetus. If there is no lead in her blood, these depleted cells are replenished by the calcium and iron in their blood over time. I don’t know what time frame this calcium and iron replacement takes place in terms of whether it takes place beyond the term of the pregnancy, but I believe that it does.
I believe that the normal healthy adult’s cells rarely need to absorb calcium or iron their unless there’s an underlying condition that has depleted calcium and iron from their mature cells I believe that there are numerous illnesses in adults that may deplete calcium and iron from mature cells. I believe that an immunodeficiency is one such condition, but there are others.
As far as I know, having a high level of lead in one’s blood is not known to be a risk to a healthy adult because the parts which absorb calcium and iron are usually replete with calcium and iron so that the lead has nowhere to bond and is passed out of the body. The idea is that all cells are replacing some calcium and iron on an ongoing basis however not in an amount that if lead bonds in their place, it will prevent the cells from working properly. The outlook improves for adults because high quantities of lead in the blood doesn’t mean that every cell receptor replacing its calcium or iron is absorbing lead exclusively if there’s plenty of calcium and iron in the blood too.
I would also point out to naysayers that the problem is not from children eating paint chips. It is that lead dust created when lead paint is impacted during the use of windows and doors, its weight carries lead quickly to the floor.
In Rosses case he is likely to have been removing paint by applying heat at temperatures that turn it into a gaseous state that can be breathed in. That is why the lower temperatures produced by the radiant heaters don’t create lead to breathe in or chipping the paint producing dust that falls to the floor. Although it might not be readily visible, it sticks to the skin of crawling children who then absorb it when they put their hands in their mouth.
The furor was all because young developing children are growing so many brand new cells that absorbing a lot of lead along with calcium and iron which prevents the new cells, particularly brain cells from ever working properly.
The point is that as an adult, you may have high levels of lead in your blood for a period of time, but there is a high likelihood that your body is not replacing enough calcium and iron at a time for it to impact the functioning of those cells that get some lead bonded in them. I think a correlation may be drawn that taking iron and calcium supplements may increase the chances that less lead will be absorbed, but again I am writing from memories of something that I studied about twenty years ago. I have have no way of knowing if studies since then may have refuted the ideas that I have just put forth.
I hope that this has been helpful while you are taking measures to lessen the quantity that is in your blood.
Hope that I have worded this so that the ideas that I am trying to convey are being clearly understood.
I don’t comment here often, but I just want to say that the others are onto something with eating dairy (or taking calcium supplements). I have an uncle who can’t have dairy and he worked in a farm machinery factory for a few years. Turned out their paints had lead in them, although low levels. He started getting ill and didn’t know why. Turned out he had lead poisoning and needed chelation. The Dr told him that if he drank milk it should have helped remove the lead from the body. But because he couldn’t have it, the lead levels had built up inside him. Nobody else at the factory had lead poisoning symptoms. My uncle made a full recovery, hoping you do too!