About colloidal silver to treat Lyme disease

[JackieCalifornia]

There have been a number of posts here recently endorsing colloidal silver as a treatment for Lyme disease.

Before taking it, please search online for    -- fda colloidal silver --   and read the history over the last ten or more years about the lack of approval and indeed the serious risks of taking silver for Lyme disease or anything else.  There is a great deal of research and literature on this topic.

The LymeNetEurope website has an article by Tom Grier, who is well known and respected in the alternative medicine field.  Here is a part of that article below.  Please go to that website to read it all.  It has footnotes and explains the research that has been done on colloidal silver:
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Real Concerns About Colloidal Silver
By Tom Grier

"As with any chronic illness, when chronic Lyme patients don't get better with traditional medicines, many will turn to alternative treatments. One of the most popular alternative treatments that Lyme patients have turned to is colloidal silver.

"In the strictest sense, colloidal silver is simply a suspension of silver metal particles so small that the slightest agitation will keep the microscopic particles in suspension. But recently, many products containing silver salts and silver ions have also been sold under the designation of 'colloidal silver.' Regardless of the accuracy of the label, any product containing silver in any form can potentially cause permanent side effects, and the claimed medical benefits touted for nearly a century as yet remain unproven.

"One of the weaknesses of the human body is that it has very poor mechanisms for the elimination of most metals. Whether the metal is lead, mercury, silver, or even iron, our cells are not biologically equipped to scavenge these metals and efficiently ferry them out of our bodies. So, the older we get, heavy metals, including silver, tend to accumulate in our cells. ...

"[W]hen silver is taken into the body in any form, silver can and will accumulate in our cells. When the silver moves into our skin and forms organo-silver compounds and silver salts, the condition is known as argyria. Unfortunately, argyria is untreatable; unlike iron we cannot deplete silver stores by any known process!

"The unseen problem with argyria is that once the process begins, there is no stopping it. Unlike hemachromatosis [too much iron in the body], which has a treatment, there is no effective treatment for argyria. Silver will continue to deposit in the skin for the rest of the patient's life.

"In a patient with argyria, even the silver contained in old-fashioned eye drops and nose drops will continue to accumulate in the skin. What is so insidious about the process is that there may be no warning signs or symptoms that this process is happening. Things can be fine until one day a patient goes out into the sun and notices that the skin is ever so slightly ashen colored where they received the most sun. This subtle change in skin color will worsen with time and with subsequent exposures to the sun.

"Many silver compounds are photo-sensitive. This is why silver salts are used in black and white film emulsions. When photographic paper is exposed to light, the white paper begins to turn gray. If the process isn't stopped with powerful chemicals, the entire paper will turn black. This is caused by light energy hitting the silver-salt crystals and causing the silver metal to coalesce into metal deposits. Unfortunately, the exact same process can happen in human skin, and the result can be bluish-gray splotches of skin! ...."
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[mojogal]

I saw that Rico and would never take it because of that!

[Ricobord]

It's true! There are people who are permanently gray from too much silver.  And then there's the very famous guy called "Papa Smurf" who took massive amounts for an extended time and turned bright blue all over.

I've only seen it recommended for very short periods of time (days or a couple weeks). I've also heard that it works better in warding off new viral infections than any kind of established infection.  I've never heard anyone say they were cured with it.