Some people will go into their doctor’s office feeling perfectly fine, have a blood metals test done and find they have a total of 20 parts per billion of these dangerous metals in their bloodstream. Oddly enough, some patients who have extremely elevated levels of either metal could still not be medically diagnosed with metal poisoning. Excess chromium can also be retained in the body’s tissues, and depending on the overall health of the patient may have a very difficult time processing the metal ions through the body’s normal elimination process particularly if the kidneys have been damaged by the excess metals. If the cobalt has caused the body’s inflammatory process to kick it, more serious ailments may have begun.
The red blood cells which carry cobalt are thought to have a lifespan of ninety days, so in theory when the cobalt source is removed from the body the cobalt levels should return to normal.
Normal chromium levels range from 0.06 to 0.93 in healthy patients and the highest safe level in the bloodstream is considered to be 17 micrograms per liter of blood.Ĭobalt is not an accumulating metal, meaning it is stored in the liver and processed out of the body through urine but not stored in the bones.
Other surgeons have chosen to only monitor those patients with levels of cobalt above that level of 5 micrograms of cobalt per liter of blood while others counsel patients with levels over 7 to undergo revision surgery with an implant which does not contain cobalt. Some orthopedic surgeons consider cobalt at any level over 0.3 micrograms of cobalt per liter of blood “abnormal,” and anything over 5 toxic. An excess of either metal can lead to vision and hearing impairments and while there is no definitive data on the subject, many health experts believe that an excessive amount of either metal in the bloodstream can lead to cancer.īoth chromium and cobalt poisoning are extremely serious yet there is no way to confirm without a blood test to measure the levels of the metals in the bloodstream. The respiratory system can be adversely affected by both chromium and cobalt, resulting in asthma and shortness of breath. Both metals can cause hypersensitivity and inflammation in the tissue surrounding the implant, and chromium is known to impair liver functions. Elevated cobalt levels can result in the inability of the body to repair DNA while elevated chromium levels can have the same effect and can also be responsible for the mutation of DNA. While elevated levels of chromium do not appear to result in heart problems, they can wreak havoc with the reproductive system. While this is alarming enough, chromium comes with its own set of adverse health effects. Symptoms of cobalt poisoning can include neurological damages, irregularities of the heart and even seizures.
In the case of the ASR implant, patient after patient has turned up with cobalt and chromium levels well over a hundred times normal levels. As more patients receive the crucial information they require, blood testing for elevated levels of these metals is becoming more common. The design of the metal-on-metal acetabular cup and ball make it likely that during physical activities the two parts will rub against one another, causing tiny particles of chromium and cobalt to shear off and enter other parts of the body. Patients who have undergone a metal-on-metal hip implant may be very concerned about the fairly recent reports of adverse health effects due to metal ion shavings which migrate into the surrounding hip tissue and bloodstream in some patients. Anti-Terrorism Explosion Injury Lawsuits.Iranian Ballistic Missile Injury Lawsuits.
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