Dust inhalation

[doctor Bob]

Just a few thoughts.
I have been in the industry for 20 plus years, I'm careful with dust, in my current commercial set up I have a huge 10HP extractor with a 20 bag filter system. However I'm not wrapped in cotton wool, I breathe in dust everyday.
Mainly the worst kind, MDF fine dust.

However, I can run 5km in 25min, I never cough and I'm confident I have the lung capacity of a small buffalo......... is all the fuss about dust bolloxs?

Certainly compared to smoking it's nothing ..... when I smoked I was dreadful, a real wheezer, constant cough, green gunk...... lung capacity of a wee mouse :shock:

am I just suddenly going to keel over at 60 with blocked lungs or get nasal cancer, maybe.

but also if I stopped woodwork could I run 5km in 20 minutes?

Imagine if i'd never smoked or woodworked, I'd make Mo Farrah look like a girl running....

 

[Paul Chapman]

I can run 5km in 25min, I never cough and I'm confident I have the lung capacity of a small buffalo.........

Just accept it, Bob - you're super-human :lol:

Cheers :wink:

Paul

 

[doctor Bob]

Ok I might have got carried away with lung capacity....... I'll settle for Buffalo crossed with a Lama...... :lol:

 

[wallace]

Hi Bob, maybe your precautions have been enough to protect you. I do have a friend in the trade for the last 20 years and he comes to my workshop and laughs at all the precautions I take, air cleaner, respirator and extractors. When I do some work with him I also point out how he could protect himself. He just scoffs and says he hasn't got time with hoovers for routers and masks. He's had a cough for years now. I call it the carpenters cough

 

[AndyT]

As a very general answer to a very specific question, I think it works like this. Medical research on what might make people unwell is mostly accurate about large numbers of people and deals in probability. So, in a large group of people, if you expose them to a hazard, the proportion of people in the group who will suffer a problem will increase. But you can't take one member of the group and say whether he will be affected or not. So none of us knows in advance if we will be made ill by exposure to a hazard.
Observing that one individual is in the unaffected minority does not prove anything about the others.

So, on the whole, if a risk is easily avoided, it makes sense to do so.

(And healthy exercise does seem to protect us against many hazards, even though it can bring some new ones. )

 

[CHJ]

Yes it is a bit like Farmers Lung, ignore it at your peril, a farming friend has just put his farm on the market, took a spell in emergency ward and MRI scans etc. to check if it was just debilitating emphysema or cancer to convince him he was pushing his luck.

A lifetime handling all that mold covered hay without a mask when stock feeding, harvest dust etc. was not such a good idea.

 

[Mr_P]

Mr X smoked all his like and lived a long and healthy life.
My Y never smoked but developed lung cancer in 50's and sadly died.

Does this prove smoking prevents cancer ? Or a as a much larger sample would prove Mr X was lucky and Mr Y was very unlucky.

Keep active, eat well and take precautions.

 

[Random Orbital Bob]

Bravo to the sensible last two posts. I'm sorry Doc Bob but if you want to play the health lottery and "macho" your way past the obvious and scientifically demonstrable risks, then fair enough. That's your decision. But to deny the risk exists is exactly the same as saying the earth is flat! It's just out of date based on current knowledge

However it does remind me of George Burns interviewed at 90 while smoking a cigar and asked "what does your doc think about your smoking"? He replied. "My doctors dead"!

 

[nicguthrie]

Once upon a time, I was a biologist - it's a dirty job, but someone has to do it!
I've seen smokers lungs removed at autopsy, and properly examined, the effects are horrendous, and the main effects happen to every smoker, everyone can live with the damage, as the Human body has a remarkable ability to adapt, and rather a lot of redundancy. In a certain percentage, the damage leads to cancer or other symptoms, but some will just live their lives till old age with lung damage just being a part of their lives, never noticing it as they've had it so long they simply don't know what good lungs would be like.

Us Woodworkers are similar if we take risks. A useful analogy I once heard was it's like rolling dice. Every time you go near a hazard, roll five dice. if they all come up with a 1, you're dead. For some folks it'll never happen, an unlucky few it might happen first time. Taking precautions is like adding extra sides to the dice. decreasing the chances of ever throwing the 1 side. By the time you've taken thorough precautions, you're throwing my old 100 sided D&D dice 5 times... your chances of something nasty happening are tiny by then, but in fact they're still there...

Depressing, but once you've done statistics, they tend to stick in your way of thinking

 

[Random Orbital Bob]

Well put Nic. I too have a (marine) biology degree and understand the power behind statistics. Regrettably, the general public become jaundiced by politicians over using them for rhetorical purposes. What statistics are is simple trending information. To ignore the advice they connote isn't a particularly rational response to them. It is however a matter of personal choice and let's face it, the vast majority of the human race aren't rational

 

[Kalimna]

Nic, Bob - in complete agreement, well put. I didnt do a proper science degree (got an MBChB for my sins), but I do have an understanding of risk, and it bugs the nuts off me when folk say " it's never happened to me, therefore it won't happen to anyone".
Most folk are adults and are well entitled to make their own choices, but that doesn't entitle them to give out bad, misleading or frivolous advice with potentially serious complications.

Right, time to go home!

Adam

 

[Phil Pascoe]

There was a discussion on the radio some while ago, and the speaker gave an example of why you had to be wary of taking statistics at face value. - did you know that tee totallers, on average, die younger than drinkers? I mean tee totallers as opposed to very occasional drinkers like your maiden aunt who has two sherries at xmas? I mean people who drink no alcohol at all?
On first reading this seems daft, until it is pointed out that a huge number of tee totallers are non drinking alcoholics, the damage to their health already having been done.

 

[Random Orbital Bob]

Like I said, politicians and media types have hijacked stats for questionable purposes. If used correctly they simply turn data into information. People have to some extent become de-sensitised because of that. But to ignore blatantly clear patterns of risk that are so clearly truthful, despite how one is disposed to stats in general is just a tad bonkers don't you think?

 

[Graham Orm]

Just a few thoughts.
I have been in the industry for 20 plus years, I'm careful with dust, in my current commercial set up I have a huge 10HP extractor with a 20 bag filter system. However I'm not wrapped in cotton wool, I breathe in dust everyday.
Mainly the worst kind, MDF fine dust.

However, I can run 5km in 25min, I never cough and I'm confident I have the lung capacity of a small buffalo......... is all the fuss about dust bolloxs?

Certainly compared to smoking it's nothing ..... when I smoked I was dreadful, a real wheezer, constant cough, green gunk...... lung capacity of a wee mouse :shock:

am I just suddenly going to keel over at 60 with blocked lungs or get nasal cancer, maybe.

but also if I stopped woodwork could I run 5km in 20 minutes?

Imagine if i'd never smoked or woodworked, I'd make Mo Farrah look like a girl running....

MDF dust is carcinogenic (causes cancer). MDF is barred from school woodwork shops in America and a friend of mine who is a 'tech' teacher was told recently that he must instruct students not to blow away the dust when cutting as it rises into the air. I am paranoid about it. A close friend has just been informed he is riddled with cancer and probably has only a couple of months at most. Trust me, if you can avoid it in any way shape or form, you MUST!

 

[Random Orbital Bob]

Couldn't agree more

 

[doctor Bob]

Bravo to the sensible last two posts. I'm sorry Doc Bob but if you want to play the health lottery and "macho" your way past the obvious and scientifically demonstrable risks, then fair enough. That's your decision. But to deny the risk exists is exactly the same as saying the earth is flat! It's just out of date based on current knowledge

Can I just point out that I'm not being "Macho" as said I have a good extraction system, but unfortunately it's the nature of the game to be exposed to dust, I wear masks where necessary etc etc, but if anyone tells me its possible to work all day without breathing in more dust than an office worker then it's impossible.
I also have employees and legal obligations (and a conscience) to meet

I also keep very healthy by running and rowing, so health is precious to me.

My point is having worked in this industry for 20 years meeting hundreds of woodworkers I have only ever met one person who was adversely affected health wise by dust ( he became allergic to it).

Yet on here it seems like every other hobby woodworker is on deaths door if they so much as breath in a micro particle and you all know of at least half a dozen close friends who have been vegetablised by dust.

I have met plenty of 20 a day guys who moan about dust but I discount them.

Also note, I have only ever worked in commercial premises so maybe we have a much cleaner environment than hobbiests, due to laws and investment

 

[Random Orbital Bob]

Fair enough old son. I did take pains to say its nobody's business but their own. But I guess your original post kind of came across as questioning the validity of dust as a risk factor (I believe the word b.o.l.l.o.x was somewhere in there

My old man just happened to die of lung cancer and spent way too long in small dusty spaces. So I guess we each come at this from a set of personal perspectives. Certainly no offence intended Doc, quite the contrary, I rather enjoy your posts

 

[Random Orbital Bob]

Actually that point you make about commercial premises is probably right on the money. The average home workshop is undoubtedly many many times more risky than hse tested commercial environments.

 

[No skills]

Good luck? better DNA, who knows?

As somebody that's suffering from an as yet un-diagnosed respiratory problem I am envious, but I do know that getting sick from being exposed to carcinogenic substances or terrible conditions for varying amounts of time is certainly not bolloxs.

I'm told that my x-rays are clear, had they told me that while my lungs were in pain (again) or I had got to the point where I could not walk and talk without seriously running out of breath (again) I'm sure I would of told them they were talking bolloxs.

So heres hoping for asthma or an allergy (or even both) or something else non deadly and manageable - heres hoping for a new job in a less deadly place, at the age of 36 I really hope its not something nasty - I do certainly know its not bolloxs.

 

[davic]

Is it worth getting a respirator even for diy use. I'd actually think its a good idea and I use 'paper' disposable type but I have been thinking about getting a decent mask as I can spray preservatives etc.

This sort of thing I mean:

http://www.tooled-up.com/product/mo...uctlisting&gclid=CNKNxofzpbgCFUGWtAodfToAEw