 |
 |
I am a semi-retired 71 year old chemist with the following exposures: 1. 1934-1944 Lead fumes from frequent casting of lead soldiers during winter months in a closed basement with a coal-fired furnace. 2. 1934-1944 Mercury from broken thermometers; switches and plumb bobs. I loved to roll it around and "silver" pennies with it. The coated pennies tasted nice and salty. 3. 1934-1944 Heavy metals from road tar derived from coal or crude oil. Us city boys from Springfield,IL stole chips from the tar casks and chewed it like chewing gum during the summer months. 4. 1943 Carbon tetrachloride from leaking 5-gallon cans stored in a basement at the state fairgrounds in wartime use as an Army Air Corps storage depot. I was employed in removal of the cans. 5. 1928-1942 Sulfur dioxide used as an inhalant to "clear out that phlegm" from a cold. 6.1944-1945 DDT aerosol from daily aircraft runs over the islands when I was in the Navy on Samar,P.I. 7.1946-1966 All of the laboratory solvents and other volatile organic compounds common to university and industrial analytical laboratories- such as chlorinated hydrocarbons;pyridine;benzene;methanol;dialkyldithiophosphates;... Other exposures included components of gun and rocket propellants- such as nitroglycerin, dinitrotoluene;trinitrotoluene; phthalate esters;isocyanates;fluorine compounds;... I can probably come up with other exposures with additional thought. Any or all of these materials could have eroded my dopamine synthesis and/or storage capacity before that bad fever hit me 10-11 years ago. Evidence of stress effects on PD came with Eloise's stroke in June 1995 - that dropped my weight from 195 to 145 and bumped my Ldopa from 1000mg to 1400mg in a`short time. Amen Patrick J Martin <[log in to unmask]> i