Bad cough

[andrea baughn]

Hey folks, Arborist/Sawyer from Toronto here! First post on the site.

Was just recently milling up a whole bunch of Box Elder / Manitoba Maple, day one of the milling I forgot my particle filter at the garage and decided to go ahead without it. Have now been affected by a pretty awful cough and tickling in my throat ever since, that doesn't seem to be subsiding at all! Looked up wood toxicity of Manitoba Maple and all of the information I found is pretty ambiguous, stating mostly that it causes asthma like symptoms for a few days..

Anyone had any experience with this?

Thanks!

-A

 

[JohnWayne]

Seek medical attention if it doesn't go away or improve in a few days.

I have milled with my CSM without breathing protection once and only once. After breathing in two stroke fumes and the sawdust all day I was left with a headache and a cough that wouldn't go away for most of the next week. I'll never do it again without my respirator.

The stuff that makes sawdust dangerous to people after the particulate worry, is the chemical variations in the dust from one species to another and from the extractives that collect in the cell walls as the tree ages. Depending on what was in the ground where the tree grew you will end up with different stuff in the dust. Maybe it has a high calcium content due to deposits in the soil, or maybe it's near farm runoff and is full of pesticides that have been banned since the 1970s. All that being said, the tickling in your throat and cough are probably symptoms of minor abrasions just from the dust and not an allergic reaction to anything, you would have known if you were allergic by now.

But who am I? I'm not a doctor. Never even played one in a school play. So if it doesn't go away I would go talk to someone who knows more about lungs than trees.

 

[mdavlee]

Always try to set up with the wind to your back. I've not had a reaction like that to any of the woods I've milled. One oil that I mixed did bother me.

 

[hopm]

Cedar has give me fits in the past.

 

[lone wolf]

Watch out for Walnut.

 

[andrea baughn]

Thanks for the tips, guys. Cough seems to be a bit better this morning. Had no prevailing wind direction for this job unfortunately, it was a vortex in the backyard.. multiple laneways between houses in an urban setting. The perfect storm!

 

[hopm]

My brother and I refinished a set of cabinets 25 plus years ago. We were young and dumb...no mask...no air circulation....lots and lots of airborne dust. 3 days into the job my Dad found my brother blue on the bathroom floor. He apparently had a reaction and was choking on the crud in his lungs. My Dad got him revived and over 25 years later he is doing regular respiratory therapy and taking steroids. I have no doubt his current respiratory issues relate directly to that job.

 

[Yellowbeard]

...wow. I've never used any kind of mask. I guess I had better start, eh?

 

[lone wolf]

...wow. I've never used any kind of mask. I guess I had better start, eh?

Prob if it is fine dust.

 

[BobL]

In an on-line survey amongst members of the Aussie Woodworkers Forum around 10% of members had some allergy to wood dust, 3% have a moderate allergy and 1% had it so severely that they could no longer handle certain woods.
The problem with wood dust allergies is that if you get an allergy to one type of wood then the likelihood of becoming allergic to another increases,
At our local community (Men's Shed) workshop we have collected donated tools and machinery including 2 nice wood lathes from persons who had wood dust reactions to the point where by they could no long use a wood lathe.
Wood dust is also one of about 200 materials on the US National Institutes of Health register of materials "known to cause cancer".
As lone wolf says it's all a matter of exposure to the finer dusts.
The persons with the greatest exposures are wood turners and anyone that does a lot of sanding in confined spaces or without adequate dust extraction

I do have a full face battery powered air mask to use if the wood is dry and there is no breeze but this only happens maybe once or twice a year as the place where I usually mill is blessed with good breezes for most of the year.
Another good reason to keep cutters sharp and rakers low so the saw makes more chips and less dust.

 

[ChoppyChoppy]

Never guess wood dust could be bad.

I helped mill a bunch of boards one day with a heavy wind blowing the dust right at us. (Can't really move the mill... it's setup under a roof on a concrete slab)


I was blowing spruce sawdust boogers for a few days!

 

[Boon]

Always try to set up with the wind to your back. I've not had a reaction like that to any of the woods I've milled. One oil that I mixed did bother me.

Today after setting up & no breeze thought I'd try something while using the mini mill. Usually the chips settle on the guide board and build up as the mill goes along giving an uneven cut if not seen to and the dust that I get showered with is a bit overwhelming to the eyes, lungs at times.

I set a log on its end, screwed the blower to it, set full throttle pointed in the right direction and walla! the dust, chips on the guide etc were nicely blown away. I normally struggle along using the air compressor to clear away the chips and try to stop the dust from clouding my vision, will give that a miss next time in favor of the blower

 

[half_full]

great idea Boon. I rebuilt an old blower just because I had the parts laying around. It's been sitting ever since as I thought it had no value. Now it does!