I ended up inhaling a load of the stuff in the loft on Monday last week, and i've been suffering ever since with irritation at the back of my throat (ranges from feeling uncomfortable making me cough to try to clear it, to wanting to throw up to see if it helps :-} )
How long does it take to clear your system normally, because it's driving me feckin' crackers ?
Less than a day IME.
NT
Bugger...
You used fiberglass without protection, its glass in your lungs, why would vomiting help. a mask is not good a respitator is. You know of asbestos, smoke, pollution. So you have glass in your lungs, some might never go away.
Sounds like you may have acquired a throat infection...
Usually no more than a day, perhaps two at most. The irritation from glass fibre tends to be respiratory rather than in the throat IME.
We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when the drugs began to take hold. I remember Colin Wilson saying something like:
Worst I've had with that has been a few days of throat irritation - for ages now I've been using decent masks up lofts. The worst stuff is ancient f/glass that's went powdery.
I know - bad move...
It just seems odd that I didn't have it when I went up there, and did an hour later...
It is slightly respiratory (I get it if I breath through my nose or mouth), but feels more like a clump is wedged in the back of my throat
I really was breathing hard though (bad back / regd disabled) and I literally couldn't move for over an hour to even get a drink when I got out - next time my missus wants me to try DIY I think i'll have to tell her to give it a go first :-(
Colin Wilson coughed up some electrons that declared:
Definitely time to get a good mask. I got on OK today playing amongst the glass wool and mouse plops with a decent but simple nose/mouth mask. Mine was better that the ones down B&Q but still basically a bit of paper with two bits of elastic.
And I do have good ventilation to the area.
Could you cope with a full face mask?
Tim
I know...
Probably, but hopefully this will be a one-time-only job (putting in loft boards) so it probably won't be worth going too overboard :-}
The 3M disposable respirators are very good IMHO. About £15 a pop, and one lasts a fair bit of time with occasional use. They fit the face very well and make a good seal. They have a exhaust vent that directs the hot wet air away from goggles / glasses etc, and filter fine particulates and vapour.
Funnily enough I was just looking at one of them...
I had the same problem, turned into a bad cold and sore throat, initially I blamed it on the rockwool too, but I wore a mask. Since then I have recovered from the cold and done some more and had no problems, it was just strange the way infection hit at the same time, just coincidence I reckon.
It sounds to me that you did the job at the least auspicious time for you to do so. I think you are prone to the sort of virus that causes rhinitis and to aches and pains related to arthritis and rheumatism.
The most immediate relief is cooling the neck /.top of the chest and taking a few aspirin.
Cut out all sugary foods and eat vitamin D rich ones. A vitamin C boost will also help. I've been watching the same effect on my own half decrepit remains at the same time as you.
Here is a thread you might find interesting:
Does that mean they don't make your glasses steam up? In which case I'll have to get one.
Yup, there is a rubber baffle over the filters on the inside that prevents the exit air going back out of them, instead it all goes via the little grill on the nose section - which is angled down and away from the eyes.
They have good straps and adjusters as well that means you can get them to pull against the face in all the right places so you don't just end up breathing through a gap.
I did read many years ago that glass fibres that lodge in the lung take about sixty days to dissolve in lung fluid, rendering their potential harmful effects as being far less likely to occur than those of asbestos, which doesn't dissolve at all in lung fluid...
Your throat problem, as others have said, is probably unrelated to the glass-fibre, possibly more to do with dust and bacteria disturbed while carrying out the work.
Doesn't seem implausible that irritation and soreness provided better opportunity for entry of a virus, but could just be coincidence. OTOH, it could have been purely a cold, and not the rockwool at all.
Providing you aren't a smoker, there's a steady stream of mucus moved up from your lungs to your throat which clears this sort of debris from the lungs.
Been there, done that, got the t-shirt... diseased disc in the base of my spine, neck and arm problems following a collision with a HGV back in 2001 etc etc.
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