"The Daring Dufas" wrote in message
...
On 6/13/2011 6:07 PM, Robert Green wrote:
"The Daring wrote in message
...
long list of NON PROTEIN based allergans snipped
Don't forget peanut allergy or bee sting allergy. I'm amazed at the
reaction people have to those then I remember how weird some people
think my allergy is. :-)
Peanuts and bee stings are protein-based allergans. The question I was
answering was HeyBub's assertion that all allergans are protein based.
That's not true. I'll bet a lot of people WISH that were true, but it
isn't. Plenty of commonly used chemicals will trigger a bona-fide
allergic
reaction.
I suspect he was correct in saying that you're not really allergic to
tobacco smoke, but instead are "sensitive" to it in the sense that it
irritates your lungs enough to cause a protective response: gobs of
green
goo. (-" You'd probably get the same reaction inhaling coal dust, saw
dust, marijuana or any number of things like that. (-:
Allergies cause a histamine reaction which is a bit different than
hawking
up huge wads of phelgm. That's your lungs saying: "Don't BREATHE
anymore of
this crap." You may be also suffering from asthma. Children of smokers
are
much more likely to be asthmatic than children of non-smokers. Exposure
to
smoke causes the tiny alveoli to contract, causing inflammation, causing
further contractions. When enough of that happens your lungs become
filled
with gunk and pneumonia is the next likely complication.
--
Bobby G.
Cool, learn something new every day. I've lived with this problem since
the middle of the last century and there are other things that can make
me ill if I inhale them. Tobacco smoke is just the most prevalent, I've
gotten sick from the fumes from brazing refrigeration lines that have
residual Freon in them. Heavy concentrations of vehicle exhaust can make
me ill or the fumes from burning plastic. I think all byproducts of
combustion have a deleterious affect on me. I remember a forest fire
some years back that covered a large area of the next county which
produced a lot of smoke and particulates that permeated the area I was
working in and I got a nose bleed along with my breathing trouble. :-(
Dude, you may need a pulmonary workup. You get to ride a bicycle and
breathe into tubes and stuff. If you're lucky, it will be an attractive
female health worker that hooks you up. While it's entirely natural to be
severely irritated by all of the things you mentioned, IIRC, burning heat
applied to refrigerant, even in trace amounts, generates chlorine compounds
that damages lungs. Not as well as phosgene (COCL2 - IIRC - aw, heck, I'll
go to Google . . . )
Uses: Phosgene - COCl2 is used in organic synthesis, in manufacture of
dyes, pharmaceuticals, herbicides, insecticides, synthetic foams, resins,
and polymers. Phosgene is a lung irritant and extremely toxic. +++ It is
also produced in the presence of refrigerants that are drawn through a heat
source, refrigeration technicians should take extreme caution and prevent
the exposure by making sure that smoking is avoided in the presence of
refrigerants and preventing inhalation of the gas when soldering or brazing.
+++
Also called CARBONYL CHLORIDE, a colourless, chemically reactive, highly
toxic gas having an odour like that of musty hay, used in making organic
chemicals, dyestuffs, polycarbonate
resins, and isocyanates for making polyurethane resins. It first came into
prominence during World War I, when it was used, either alone or mixed with
chlorine, against troops. ++++ Inhalation
causes severe lung injury +++, the full effects appearing several hours
after exposure.
First prepared in 1811, phosgene is manufactured by the reaction of carbon
monoxide and chlorine in the presence of a catalyst. It can be formed by the
thermal decomposition of
chlorinated hydrocarbons; e.g., when carbon tetrachloride (q.v.) is used as
a fire extinguisher. Gaseous phosgene, which has a density about three and
one-half times that of air, liquefies at a
temperature of 8.2° C (46.8° F); it is usually stored and transported as the
liquid under pressure in steel cylinders or as a solution in toluene. With
water, phosgene reacts to form carbon dioxide and hydrochloric acid.
http://www.c-f-c.com/specgas_products/phosgene.htm
Dumb kids like me that used to light matches to things like Lysol, with
refrigerant-like propellants have breathed in a lot of that stuff and killed
lung tissue. It has a very, very nasty characteristic smell and I've
smelled it when I've had any A/C brazing done. You need to meet up with an
oximeter soon, dude. It will come with a sleep study or a pulmonary workup
or you could even buy one on Ebay. They've been getting cheaper every year.
A finger clip device that IIRC read the oxygen level in you blood through
the redness of your hemoglobin.
The best thing my mother ever did for me was to nag me to leave one of my
very early jobs as chem. QC at a local photofinisher - especially when I
brought home the clothes that got eaten by a nitric acid spill. Remember
the creature's blood in Alien(s)? Just as fast on clothes. Here one
second, pssst! Gone except for any polyester threads. It took a few seconds
longer to eat through my boot. Long enough to get it off and that was all
that mattered. It wasn't really QC, I also had to mix the 50 gallons vats
of developers, fixers and stabilizers, which meant dumping a 1 gallon brown
glass Kodak bottle into a huge stainless tank. The trick was to swirl it
around to get a vortex going inside the bottle. Otherwise it glugged and
spit concentrated formaldehyde everywhere. I think that job lasted six
months. One of my longer runs.
--
Bobby G.