A man named Paul Karason has been all over the news lately. Paul has a condition called “argyria”, bluing of the skin that can occur with the over-consumption of silver. Paul makes his concoction using an inexpensive colloidal silver generator. By his own admission, he drank a large glass of “cloudy silver water” per day, for over ten years. The concentration was very high, at least 300ppm!

These cheap machines produce very large particles (hence the cloudy color) of silver compounds, such as silver salts and silver proteins that under the right conditions, can collect in the skin and turn “blue” when exposed to sunlight. One needs to consume large amounts daily over many months to be affected. Thousands of these poorly designed machines are in use, but only a very few individuals have actually developed this condition.

ionic silver can’t turn your skin blue, ever!Silver ions are different than silver compounds, and even in large amounts can not cause argyria as ions are too small to get trapped in the skin. Silver ions are so small; they can only be seen with an electron microscope. They do not react to sunlight as do the much larger silver compounds, and our water has only 10ppm – not the 300ppm Mr. Karason was drinking.