Probably inhaled asbestos

[Jonatan Rullman]

Hmm. Asbestos in the insulation. That's not good. If you have any respect for your family and everyone living within a hundred-mile radius, you'll get a construction company to build a concrete sarcophagus over the entire house, and then wear a space suit for the rest of your life so you don't risk contaminating anyone.

Seriously though. As already mentioned, you should probably be more worried about those cigarettes than the asbestos. People die from it, but we're talking about completely different types of exposure.

A funny anecdote on the subject. When we replaced the stove in the house last year, we saw that it was stabilized with what looked like eternitplattor under the feet.

 

[J_O_F]

Doubt that the pipes were insulated with asbestos.
We also have such pipes in our house built -57, it is plaster on gauze that is wrapped around the insulation and then wetted, just like plastering a broken leg.
Even if it had been asbestos, I wouldn't have worried at all, you also had a mask (even if it might not be rated for asbestos) it has still captured a lot.

 

[J_O_F]

Hmm. Asbestos in the insulation. That's not good. If you have any respect for your family and everyone living within a hundred-mile radius, you should get a construction company to build a concrete sarcophagus over the entire house, and then wear a spacesuit for the rest of your life so you don't risk infecting anyone.

Seriously though. As already stated, you should probably be more worried about those cigarettes than the asbestos. People die from it, but we're talking about entirely different types of exposure.

A funny anecdote on the subject. When we replaced the stove in the house last year, we saw that it was stabilized with what looked like asbestos-cement sheets under its feet.

Ha,

I took down the entire asbestos-cement roof on my old house before laying concrete tiles.
About 3 tons of sheets became two overfilled trailers to the recycling center.

 

[Satsuki]

I would guess that those numbers imply that the work was done without a protective mask. You have used a mask, even though you should have had a different one. I believe your exposure is significantly lower.

Here are some interesting things being researched right now. So soon, maybe you can smoke like a chimney, handle a lot of asbestos without protection, check into lung renovation for a week, and then come out with the lungs of a 20-year-old again.


CELLULAR PLASTICITY IN LUNG DEVELOPMENT AND DISEASE

Normal lung development is controlled in a tight spatio-temporal fashion by several soluble factors, as well as cell types required for proper organ development [1]. It is likely that the capability of the lung to initiate repair and regeneration following any insult is altered over the life span of an organism. If and how the human adult lung regenerates are two of the most exciting questions that remain to be answered.



CIRCULATING AND RESIDENT PROGENITOR CELLS

The bone marrow represents a potent source for several progenitor cell populations, such as haematopoietic stem cells, mesenchymal stem cells or fibrocytes. Many of these cell types have recently been reported to modify chronic lung disease;


REGENERATIVE SIGNALLING MECHANISMS

Recently, signalling pathways essential for organ development, such as Notch, Sonic Hedgehog, or Wnt signalling, have been demonstrated to be aberrantly altered in several chronic lung diseases.


TISSUE ENGINEERING AND LUNG TRANSPLANTATION

Another promising approach for lung regeneration is based on tissue engineering. Here, the community has witnessed major breakthroughs in recent years

To be completely honest, this is quite far into the future... But since this type of research takes time, it's good to start now! I laughed out loud when I saw the article, I work in a similar field and know the authors


Some comments on the thread;
1) Someone wrote that you can get mesothelioma after a single exposure - source for this claim, please! It's quite the opposite of what the majority of the scientific literature says.

2) Very few people die of mesothelioma in Sweden today, and those who develop it have almost without exception worked with it. That is, been exposed to it often (daily) for a long period.

3) Since you have smoked so much, you run a much, much greater risk of getting COPD, smoking-associated lung cancer, type 2 diabetes, or cardiovascular diseases than mesothelioma. In other words, you should be much more afraid of these than mesothelioma, and when it comes to smoking, you've been doing it for many years. However, it's always good to quit smoking, as the body can recover - so use this as an incentive to quit completely!

4) A really good idea to list the risk of dying from different things to put things in the right perspective.

5) Asbestos fibers CAN actually be broken down by the immune system in the lung, so not everything will remain.

6) Your respiratory protection has most likely protected against a lot of the asbestos, reducing exposure.

7) Good idea to clean more thoroughly, if only to feel better and reduce anxiety. That you've spread it through the house is probably unlikely.

 

[Markarbetaren]

What a thing! I would probably have pondered every day for the rest of my life if I had experienced this. A CT scan is probably the least I would have paid for myself.
I remember when I stepped on a rusty nail on December 12, 1983. It was in the afternoon, at exactly 13:32 to be exact. I still worry about this today. Every day when I wake up, I'm completely convinced that I have blood poisoning.
I sympathize with you and know what you are going through

 

[docboy]

The thing with asbestos is that the size of the fibers is incredibly small. I've heard that for an asbestos fiber, it takes several months to fall from the ceiling to the floor. It's best to ventilate the basement if asbestos has spread.

 

[hempularen]

That may be the case, but a small comfort for the 200-300 who die each year from cancer related to asbestos :/

Yes, but even if it might actually be that many (doubtful), most of them have worked with asbestos without protection for a long time.

In the statistics, there are a few where such a source could not be found, but they are very few. And for some of them, connections have been found in the style of working near an asbestos industry, maybe standing every day waiting for the bus outside the firm's dust extractor outlet... But there are some where such a connection hasn’t been found, but it's about very few, I don't know if it's even one per year.

But IF you get lung cancer in the future, there is an infinitely greater risk that it's due to cigarettes. A relative recently passed away from lung cancer, he smoked 35 years ago. And has definitely never been near any asbestos-related activity.

 

[HEM2121]

It is not healthy to be on the streets either. They don’t even measure how much asbestos there is in the regular air, with the reasoning that it is too expensive to take the samples. Of course, it is in the air and a lot of other stuff that is not healthy to breathe in.

 

[Snailman]

Dad worked a few times with asbestos / eternit, and he didn't get any noticeable illness from it, also lived in a radon house so...

Read about a city architect who after retirement rented an apartment that he found out had radon, and complained about it in the newspaper, he probably won't live long enough to develop any radon-related illness exactly.

 

[Odjuret]

I think TS should worry more about various illnesses related to smoking than the little asbestos removal that was done.
You also had a mask, even if it wasn't the right class. It still reduces quite a lot.

However, since you have contracted life, which is a sexually transmitted disease with 100% mortality.

 

[lars_stefan_axelsson]

Doubtful that the pipes were insulated with asbestos. We also have such pipes in our house built in '57, it's plaster on gauze that was wrapped around the insulation and then wetted, just like plastering a broken leg.

Yes, that's exactly what asbestos was used for. That is, they mixed white asbestos with a binder into a slurry that could be smeared on elbows, T-joints, and other places that were difficult to insulate in the usual way. So if it's "plaster bandage" from that time, it's 99.9% likely to be asbestos.

Now "white" asbestos (chrysotile) isn't the worst and is actually the least implicated when it comes to mesothelioma (which is the nasty disease associated with asbestos).

So to TS. Your own exposure, as others have said, you can pretty much disregard. But as mentioned, stop smoking. It's primarily smoking+asbestos, or for that matter, as you suggest; smoking+radon, that causes the significant increased risk.

Relatively worse, in that case, is that you might have contaminated the rest of the basement. If so, clean it thoroughly, i.e., wet-wipe all surfaces that can be wet-wiped and dispose of rags/paper in hermetically sealed plastic bags. Do not vacuum. If you have a vacuum cleaner with a functioning HEPA filter, it probably works fine, but there are no studies on how household vacuums with HEPA filters actually work for asbestos fibers. If you have a vacuum that "smells like dust" from the exhaust despite a HEPA filter, it is inadequate and should not be used. (And change the HEPA filter outdoors and dispose of it when you're done).

But it's difficult to do a risk assessment even for the contamination that has occurred. Indoor environments are particularly tricky when it comes to asbestos. If you haven't, for example, sanded asbestos-containing material, thorough cleaning and airing should suffice, and, as mentioned, do not use a vacuum without a HEPA filter going forward.

But yes, one gets paranoid. So allow yourself to be that way for three days or so. Make sure to clean thoroughly and then forget about it. Asbestos is primarily an occupational health problem, not an individual risk.

 

[pelpet]

To be completely honest, this is quite far into the future... But since that type of research takes time, it's good they are starting now! Laughed out loud when I saw the article, I work with similar things and know the authors

The world is small..

I also realize that it usually takes a long time for new medical research to reach the local health center, but the world is changing. There is a large and fast internet that spreads knowledge at a completely different speed than before. In 2006, there weren't even smartphones, and now you can't survive half an hour without one. And the average lifespan has increased by almost half a year per year over a long time. At the same time, asbestos-related diseases take a long time to develop, so by the time OP gets their combined lung cancer, mesothelioma, and COPD in 20 years, a lot of things will likely have happened.

You can compare it to the mortality rate from cancer now and 20 years ago for men. Here is a graph for stomach cancer. In 20 years, the incidence and mortality have more than halved, and in 31 years (1980-2011), the risk has been reduced to a quarter.

 

[Assar63]

I played with asbestos when I was little; it made such a cool noise when you had it in the bonfire...
To my knowledge, asbestos was mostly used in the form of eternit for construction.
Eternit, in particular, is quite hard, and you need to drill into it to get powder out.
For insulation, glass wool and rock wool were and still are used.
The latter is a bit grayer in color.
In the past, sawdust was also used, but I don't think it's sawdust you have.
Asbestos was also used in welding gloves for its heat-insulating properties. I don't think it's gloves you have in the wall.

// Martin

 

[Jehu]

A single fiber kills, right KristinaRT?
If only we knew which one...
The paradox is that some insulators and others have worked in clouds of asbestos for years without getting sick. Others died prematurely from mesothelioma without having been exposed. Like Steve McQueen.
There are other things that are more rational to worry about. The risks of radon will also be reassessed.

 

[stebe]

Asbestos was banned in 1976, those who were exposed during that time have probably either developed illness or managed to avoid it. So how is it that the number of asbestos-related diseases has increased? There are theories about things like what the thread creator just described. The buildings that were constructed with asbestos products are the ones now undergoing renovations, often with ignorant handling of asbestos.
http://www.sydsvenskan.se/sverige/asbest-dodar-fler-igen/
I don't want to sprinkle salt on the thread creator's fear, but since there's some joking in the thread, maybe some factual info is needed. I have seen enough people suffer from asbestos lung to joke it away!