Colloidal Silver

[Gaz_hmmmm]

What exactly is this for?

From what I've read people using it use it for its anti-bacterial properties and as an anti-biotic.

Also apparently the smaller the molecules of colloidal silver the better apparently it is.

There's also info' that says it's a trace mineral that's needed by the human body but cause it's needed in such small amounts and as it isn't an important mineral it's not widely used.

So has anyone used it here? What did you use it for? Did it help at all? How good was it and are you still using it?

 

[Dave]

The antimicrobial properties of silver only come from ionic or solvated silver species. Metallic silver has no antimicrobial activity. Any antimicrobial activity seen in colloidal silver comes from slow surface oxidation of the colloid, and considering the ratio of metallic to ionic silver it is spectacularly inefficient.

Incidentally, metallic silver is technically a heavy metal, and will accumulate in your body as there are no means for it to be removed. You won't have the horrible effects of lead or mercury, but it is not a 'trace element', micronutrient, or anything else like that. I work in the industry, developing silver products for antimicrobial purposes, and I can tell you with first-hand certainty that colloidal silver is snake oil. Period.

Papa smurf, as posted above, is an extreme example showing how well the body can deal with silver.

 

[simstimstar]

Apparently some of the colloidal silver sold in the past was not in fact colloidal and it has caused some people to turn permanently blue. I considered taking it for a skin condition a few years back and decided the risk of turning blue was not worth taking it internally, as fun as it would be to go perma-smurf. You could really fuck with people if you were blue, hehe

 

[Dave]

The colloidal stuff will do that too, if you take enough of it over time.

 

[thujone]

if we all take it and take something else to turn bioluminescent this'd be bluelight fo realz

 

[Mehm]

My friend turned me on to this stuff. It is particles of silver suspended in water. I have used it to treat my dog's ear infection, soar throat, wounds, acne, and canker sores. I've also seen it cure fungus and mold on plants. Supposedly one can use it to sterilize water and surgical instruments, and to even fight cancer. It really works very well.

You can use it topically, or you can swish it around your mouth for a few minutes to get it into your blood stream.

Caution! A handful of hypochondriacs have used it in vast excess which turned their skin blue!

One can purchase colloidal silver from a health food store or online. IMO it is very expensive. Making it yourself is quite easy and cheep however. Basically two pure silver wires are place in distilled water. A positive charge is run through one and a negative charge through the other. This causes particles of silver to detach from the wires and mix into the water.

Silver cream and bandages are commonly used in surgery. However, there are plenty of sites that seem intent on slandering its use. I can say first hand that they are wrong. Next time you have a need for disinfectant or anti-biotics, give silver a try and I promise you'll be making your own generator soon after.

 

[rm-rf]

Ive heard that the blue-skin condition is irreversible, or at least, lasts years.

Friend of mine went though a phase where he smoked like half a oz a day, and would just read conspiracy theories online all night instead of sleeping. About 5 months into this lifestyle binge, he went fanatic about colloidal silver. He took it for a few weeks (months perhaps?) and diddnt seem to affect him negatively. As far as doing good for him, he was able to handle dairy where he previously couldnt.

The rest of us just made fun of him really. I had mountains of info on this stuff dumped on me, cant say any of it won me over.

 

[Pharcyde]

Holy shit! im gunna try this

 

[Dave]

Argyria is irreversible, but surface skin staining goes away once the skin dies and flakes off naturally.

I won't go into detail, but I've yet to read a single, properly conducted peer reviewed article that says that it is worthwhile, and a stack of them that have spoken against it. I work in medical silver applications, and in my opinion it is not worthwhile to take. YMMV of course, but I wouldn't take it.

 

[Mehm]

^^I've SEEN it work wonders multiple times. Would you say that this is probably placebo?

 

[Dave]

There is a weak activity, due to surface oxidation of the colloid to Ag2O, but based on an activity/mass metric it's about as bad as it gets without being completely inactive. For the silver to be active as an antimicrobial agent there needs to be a soluble species-- this is a published observation, and I've replicated the work myself as well. Ag(0) does not dissolve in water on its own, and as such is inactive. Ag2O is poorly soluble, but some will dissolve giving 'free' Ag(I), from which the medicinal activity is derived.

The activity of the colloidal solution is therefore dependent on the average mass/surface area ratio of the colloid. Even then though, since the most active species that will be generated is Ag2O, and in small quantities at that, and slowly in ambient or biological conditions, the overall activity is minimal. Better than AgCl, but worse than silver sulfadiazine (a topical silver medication used to treat burns) or even just pure Ag2O. The 'advantage' is that one can easily buy metallic silver and generate one's own sols with a bit of practise-- silver sulfadiazine is a drug and is therefore controlled; Ag2O is generally only available from chemical suppliers.

It's not entirely worthless by any means, but there are better solutions out there, and (I can't stress this enough) it is not a panacea. It is a heavy metal, and the long-term effects of regular silver intake have not been properly studied. It is safe for topical use, but I'd even be wary of using it as a mouth rinse for the time being.

 

[Jabberwocky]

I know a friend of a friend who is a colloidial silver evangelist. I think silver has some kind of archetypal significance that is in part involved in silver-health excitement. The colloidial silver folk I've encounter have an out of proportion zeal about its uses and spreading the word that isn't quite like other alternative health enthusiasts.

National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine has a little bit to say, I'm putting the cautions from them out. They do say that argryia is irreversible. Seems like even if that is the case chealation agents would help a bit. That's something I don't know though are there any safe enough to use chealators of silver?

Side Effects and Risks

Animal studies have shown that silver builds up in the tissues of the body. In humans, buildup of silver from colloidal silver can lead to a side effect called argyria, which causes a bluish-gray discoloration of the skin, other organs, deep tissues, nails, and gums. Argyria is permanent and cannot be treated or reversed. Other side effects from using colloidal silver products may include neurologic problems (such as seizures), kidney damage, stomach distress, headaches, fatigue, and skin irritation. Colloidal silver may interfere with the body's absorption of some drugs, such as penacillamine, quinolones, tetracyclines, and thyroxine.

 

[Mehm]

thanks for all of the info guys!

Dave, you mentioned that the silver has to be oxidated in order to be active. Could it be possible that the silver oxidizes after it is applied to a wound or infection?

 

[Dave]

It oxidizes in air, in physiological environments and from dissolved oxygen in water. To determine that the metallic silver is uncreative, it needs to be handled in a non-oxidizing environment (i.e. under argon, using degassed water). The point is that it oxidizes a) slowly and b) from a completely inactive to a weakly active species.

I can't discuss my work too much due to an NDA, but there are far more active forms of silver available, although none can be made at home. To get the same topical dose of active silver using a highly active species, I would only need to use a fraction of the precursor silver as would be required using colloidal silver.

It's not widely available yet in the US, and won't be available in Canada for a while, but keep your eyes open for a highly active OTC silver wound dressing line. If I have my way, there'll be a few highly active competitors to topical colloidal silver sols in the pipeline soon too

 

[Mehm]

Sounds great Dave, best of luck.

Frankly, I'm not scared of argyia. My friend has been ingesting silver for years with no ill effect. All in all it looks like I'm good to go on continuing the use of silver. I'll chill on oral ingestion unless I have a wound in my mouth or serious illness.

 

[MynameisnotDeja]

Wow, Dave is like some sort of silver genius bad ass! :D lol

I know a friend of a friend who is a colloidial silver evangelist. I think silver has some kind of archetypal significance that is in part involved in silver-health excitement. The colloidial silver folk I've encounter have an out of proportion zeal about its uses and spreading the word that isn't quite like other alternative health enthusiasts.

I have noticed this as well.

My use of CS has been limited. I had a CS spray at one point that seemed to help with skin infections, but the evidence wasn't really strong or conclusive. It just "seemed" to help but could have been my imagination. It is hard to tell with these things as so many other factors can effect my skin breakouts and healing time.

The spray came in a tiny bottle and ran out pretty quick, and I seem to recall it being pretty expensive so I never bought any more until recently when I got a discounted bottle of a cheap brand at work. My only use of it so far was putting some in my neti pot when I thought I might have had a sinus infection. I did the neti wash and then over the next day I got this weird drainage from my sinus into my throat. It burned really bad, then I got an incredibly sore throat and was sick for like a week.

So yeah, I have not had the most remarkable experiences with this stuff. It's generally given me half ass or negative experiences but perhaps I am not using it properly? I am open to suggestion of how to use it. I don't want to drink it though, the idea of drinking silver creeps me out a little.

 

[Dave]

Heh, thanks MNIND! It's how I pay my bills.

It's not so much the argyria that I'm worried about; I'm not entirely convinced that taking silver systemically (as opposed to topically) is entirely benign. People with severe argyria appear to be fine, but have they consented to be properly studied to prove this? I've not seen any papers on it yet.

If you want to get the most bang for your buck from colloidal silver, you'll need to generate it yourself and use it right away. Sols sold commercially have surfactant 'passivating' layers, which are basically detergents which keep the colloids from agglomerating and falling out of solution. There is also (apparently) a knack to making electrolytic silver sols-- you want the smallest particle size possible, but also need an appreciable dose. IIRC (Mehm can probably correct me on this) usually ~ 60nm diameter is considered the sweet spot, which corresponds to a pale yellow transparent solution. If it goes red or brown the particle size is too small, and you're very unlikely to see a shorter wavelength than yellow as the silver dose would be too small.

Or, alternatively, you could use silver sulfadiazine, a weak silver nitrate solution (as in ~ 30-100 ppm Ag) or any of a number of other topical medications designed specifically for the ailment in question

 

[Mehm]

I'm pretty new to the silver thing. The directions I know of call for 10-14 gauge pure silver and a 300-700 milliamp 12v power source. Once you can see the beam from a laser pointer in the solution, it is ready.

 

[Dave]

Hm, so the sol is supposed to be colourless then? Interesting-- I've heard conflicting opinions on the subject, but if you're scattering coherent light then yeah, you've got a colloidal sol. I think that I might have to hack together some sort of apparatus so that I can do some proper testing and see where this material actually lies on the activity spectrum. It would be interesting to see the soluble silver content over time, as well as the stability of an unprotected sol over time. We've got a really handy model for antimicrobial activity as a function of silver release, so that'll tell me a lot.

All I'll need is a bit of 9999 silver. An ounce'll do nicely-- I can make the electrode from that easily. Any volunteers?

 

[Jabberwocky]

I originally thought silver was toxic only to werewolves and micro-organisms but it turns out that silver is toxic to a wide range of shapeshifting beings some of whom do not turn into wolves.

Now I have to think of a non-trollish reason to justify this post-so, silver is the most conducive or has the least resistance of any element. Is this related to the efficacy of silver or silver compounds as topical antiseptics?

Edit to add: The properties of silver as an antiseptic, are they shared by the other two "coinage elements" in the same periodic table column, gold and copper, to any extent?