Amidol poisoning/allergy

[Tony Lakin]

Hi
I have tried using Amidol developer a couple of times recently and on each occasion felt ill for a couple of days afterwards ie bad taste in the mouth, stomach upset and headache:eek:, are these the symptoms caused by Amidol poisoning?

[John Schneider]

http://www.sigmaaldrich.com/MSDS/MSDS/DisplayMSDSPage.do

[Daniel Grenier]

You're not supposed to drink the stuff! But seriously, do you wear a proper breathing mask and gloves when mixing the dry ingredients? Do you wear gloves when using the wet dev? Is your darkroom well ventilated? I've followed these steps for many a dev session and never felt what you are feeling using amidol. Amidol is nasty stuff and it may well be you have a low tolerance to it. I hope you can figure this out for your sake.

[Kirk Keyes]

John, that link doesn't work for me. Try this:
http://www.sciencelab.com/xMSDS-2_4_Diaminophenol_HCl-9923700

Are you putting your hands in it or using gloves?

[Kerik Kouklis]

Try Ansco 130 instead.

[Sevo]

Amidol is somewhat poisonous, but I doubt that you could even manage to kill yourself by drinking Amidol developer - the alkaline and even the water content are likely to put you out of circulation before you could build up a critical Amidol level. And it is no powerful contact poison either - up until fairly recently many DIY hair dyes contained a higher Amidol concentration than any developer ever invented, and you were supposed to rub them into your hair and let it sit for half an hour...

It is a powerful allergen. However, your symptoms are about as far from an allergy as it can get. Unless you have indeed been drinking the stuff, an allergy would not make you sick first of all, but give you hay fever, asthma or a rash on exposed skin areas.

It might also be a carcinogen (and that is the main reason why I'd wear gloves and mask) - but even if it is, you wouldn't notice for another few decades, so there must be something else at the back of your problem.

Sure you aren't suffering from eye strain or CO2 poisoning? Either would match the description, and they are quite likely to affect you in a unventilated darkroom....

[Donald Miller]

What temperature is your water when mixing? Too high and it will gas off. I have used it for a number of years with nitrile gloves and without a respirator. No problems. I would not want to breath the powder. Weston used it without gloves of any sort and consequently had black finger nails.

[IanMazursky]

When i started experimenting with Lodima and Amidol, i read some of the MSDS's.
I decided not to take any risks with it and my lungs. I number of cases of pneumonia have left them scared.
I have an exhaust fan that i bought from Home Depot and a very good respirator.
Whenever i mix powders, i always use the fan and respirator but during development, just the fan is on unless im doing color RA4, then i also use the respirator.
With Amidol, i always use Nitrile gloves to be safe.
I didn't want to end up with an allergy to a process and paper that i now love.

[John Bowen]

I've used Michael Smith's Amidol formula for about 5 years now. I wear a mask when mixing the chemicals and wear gloves when mixing the chemicals and when developing the prints. Other than a black toe when I spilled some on my bare feet, I haven't noticed ANY ill effects.

Good luck,
John

[ric_kb]

I have an exhaust fan that i bought from Home Depot and a very good respirator.
Whenever i mix powders, i always use the fan and respirator but during development, just the fan is on

Is the fan LOWER than your nose or HIGHER....
the preferred placement of an EXHAUST FAN for a darkroom is LOW. Keep the fumes, dust away from your head, not drawn past it to the exhaust...

Does the fan exhaust enough volume... fast enough...

[Tony Lakin]

Hi Guys
Thanks for all your advise, I'm afraid I may not have treated the Amidol with the caution I should have, wearing neither gloves or mask, I also have a very large (18 inch) extractor fan in my darkroom which I regret I didn't use.
I will try Ansco 130 as suggested by Kerik which I had intended to try anyway having purchased a supply of Glycin from PF a while back.

Thanks again to all:) :) :)

[PViapiano]

When i started experimenting with Lodima and Amidol, i read some of the MSDS's.
I decided not to take any risks with it and my lungs. I number of cases of pneumonia have left them scared.
I have an exhaust fan that i bought from Home Depot and a very good respirator.
Whenever i mix powders, i always use the fan and respirator but during development, just the fan is on unless im doing color RA4, then i also use the respirator.
With Amidol, i always use Nitrile gloves to be safe.
I didn't want to end up with an allergy to a process and paper that i now love.

Ian,

I wasn't aware that one should wear a respirator when doing RA4.

I haven't tried RA4 yet, but plan too in the future.

[Greg Blank]

For used RA without really good venting and fan, it's not a big problem if you are processing with a Jobo, but became a problem when I moved to table top Roller transport. My breathing got back to normal about four years ago when I moved and went using a computer, eventually I will complete my wet darkroom but with a much btter fan. FWIW Weston died from Parkinsons...maybe something consider when deciding not to use exhaust fans and gloves around hazardous chemicals.



Ian,

I wasn't aware that one should wear a respirator when doing RA4.

I haven't tried RA4 yet, but plan too in the future.

[Drew Wiley]

In this day and age I can't understand why anyone would work with any kind of darkroom chemistry without gloves and ventilation. The problem with something like
RA4 is that you can get along with it just fine for some time and then all of a sudden
"crash" into sensitivity; and after that it takes just a tiny amount of exposure to certain of its chemicals to make you allergic every time. People also get sensitized to
glycols, and its only a matter of time until someone starts getting sick due to exposure
to fresh inkjet inks. The amount of glycol present might be small, but to repeat, it's only a matter of time. So even if you are using a big inkjet printer you should have
some common-sense ventilation in your workspace and avoid touching fresh ink with
bare skin. Never heard of amidol being a common problem. Don't inhale the dust or
vaporize it at high temps. Wear gloves. Really simple.

[Drew Wiley]

I should postcript what I just mentioned because some smart-ass is inevitably going to
argue how safe inkjet pretends to be. But in industrial colorants, glycols are in the
process of being phased out entirely. They'll be around for awhile, at least a decade,
but the long-term goal is to get them out of colorants completely. In most case, there
are some technological hurdles to doing this, but it is a long-term air-quality and health
mandate. Weston probably got sick from having his hands routinely in pryro, which is
distinctly toxic and linked in other industries to Parkinson's.