I am horrified! she just turned one year. she tested level 5 for lead. doc says not really bad until it passes 9 but that he is taking it Very Seriously!
we will test her blood again soon, but in the mean time we need to find out where this is coming from. She almost always drinks bottled water. Our house was remodeled a year before she was born with all new paint.
My home is old, but was a rent house and has been repainted every few years over the last 30 years.
And we do not use any daycare, or public play areas.
I was wondering if there were any testing kits i could use to test with before we have to call a professional in?
Does anyone know of anything that can test water, soil, and/or toys for lead content??
You can buy a home lead test kit at Home Depot. I bought one to see if the wall paint in my house had lead in it. You can also buy kits at home depot to test for lead in water. The test are fairly inexpensive, easy to use.
Hi KR, my middle child tested high for lead (why the other two did not who knows?).
His ped put him on nasty iron supps for 3 months. After which the follow up show a reduced level.
He's almost 16 now, has had no commonly recognized problems associated with high lead levels.
:)
My kids had elevated lead levels too when they were tested. The action level by law is 10. Lead is no joke, but there is no treatment until much much higher levels. I think treatment starts at 44. Treatment is chelation and it's awful, so the health risks are not worth it until your child is actually having symptoms, which WILL NOT HAPPEN at level 5. The normal peak for lead in a child's blood is between 1 and 2, when everything is going into that mouth, and then it declines.
You can call your local environmental laboratory and ask for jars for a soil sample and a water sample. You want to let the water sit overnight and take your sample first thing in the morning. Do not let the water run. Just turn the water on, fill up the jar, and close. There aren't any preservatives and you don't have to worry about headspace in the jar. Just fill and close. For a soil sample, choose the areas that are under the drip line for your house or the areas your kid plays in. Fill the jars with soil. Keep in mind that up to 100 ppm in soil is a normal level for normal soil. You can research this on the web.
Call and talk to your local health department. They can give you guidance.
New paint, even over old lead-based paint, should be good enough. Really unless there is peeling paint she won't get it from the paint on the walls. You can stop worrying about that. The only exception is from areas like door jambs and windowsills, where constant abrasion from the doors and windows can wear away new paint and leave older paint exposed, and then the dust from the constant abrasion gets into your toddler's mouth. If this is not an issue, then paint is not your source. You can get a paint lead swab kit from Home Depot or Lowe's or maybe your local hardware store most likely, or you can order one online. Call the health department first; theirs will probably be cheaper.
However, lab error seems to be pretty common, which makes me angry. My kids were retested 3 months later and both came back non-detect, which means "lead-free" and so I wonder which one is correct, you know?
My best friend is a nurse. She said she regularly encounters lab errors while working in the hospital. Personally, I would want her retested to confirm the levels if you really can't think of any areas of contamination. My daughter once had her blood tested and the doctor was alarmed by her level of something. She immediately sent us for another blood draw and within hours we heard her test was in normal limits. The doc chalked it up to lab error. good luck!!!
You've has some really good responses. The only thing I didn't see as a I scanned them is car keys. Do you let your daughter play with them? They have lead and are not safe for children to play with.
How did they test? Finger stick or blood draw? Finger sticks are not accurate.
Not sure where the lead is coming from, but you mentioned she only drinks bottled water. Folks are led to believe that they are consuming a superior product with bottled water, but the opposite is actually true. All bottled water comes from the same sources as your tap water. The ones that are called "Spring Water" come from public municipalities that may be spring fed. Sometimes the bottled water companies filter it a little bit before they bottle and sell it. The thing is, when the water gets hot, as it always will somewhere between the bottler and the grocery store shelves, chemicals from the plastic bottle leach into the water. These chemicals are harmful to all of us, but especially children. What you need is a really good water filter, that cleans out all of the toxins, chemicals, and pharmaceuticals that are present in all of our public water supplies.
Nikken makes one that not only filters the water to one-tenth of a micron (the same filtration level as a kidney dialysis machine), but also adds minerals and natural nutrients back into the water. The Pi-Mag Aqua Pour Gravity system provides clean, healthy, nutritious water for less than one dollar a day. You can find Nikken's water filtration systems at
http://www.nikken.com/brendaramsey.
I wouldn't worry too much yet. My eldest daughter tested at 6 a few years ago, and like you, I freaked... for nothing. They tested her 6 months later and her levels were normal again. Kids get into stuff that we wouldn't even dream of being lead contaminated (I never found out where my daughter was getting hers). How old is your house? Could be the paint. My old apartment was built in the 40's and had 'normal' paint on top of lead based paint. Wait until your child gets tested again before bringing out the big guns. Also, check with the school/daycare, and make sure there have been no other incidents of medium-high lead levels in the other children.
I have heard there can be higher levels of lead that leach out from certain pots and pans, but have never had to look into this so I don't have a clue which ones. Also I see in stores the sign under ceramics and pottery, dishes and such, that they have not been tested for lead and my contain higher levels than recomended. These are usually highly painted, glazed plates with bright colors and bold patterns. I am thinking food on these plates may absorb some lead from the paints and glaze this way and get into the food. I wonder if the cute little kids dish sets we all love have lead in them too. When we buy things from discount stores (even high end stores)we might not be getting the best tested items from some other country. Their requirements are different than ours and they still manage to ship to America and we sometimes don't know. Also, remember the past year or so when a certain brand of toys was recalled for lead paint. A lot of popular toys on the market right now still come from the countries that don't care about testing and for some reason they get here to our kids. Buying old toys at garage sales and thrift stores may lend itself to trouble too. It is hard to know what to trust anymore. If the outside of your house was repainted there is a chance it was sanded or scraped down first and if that old paint contained lead it went into the ground. If your kids play right there near the house they may be exposed to the lead paint in the dirt.. ugh,,,You can buy a test kit with a lead tester stick..Not sure where but if you check online you will probably find out where to get one.
Hi. Get rid of any items that are well-worn (showing scratches, knicks, etc.) If an item contains lead, it is more likely to be transferred if the surface is blemished in some way. I was concerned so I also started looking for "made in the USA" since we have stricter manufacturing standards and started buying organic/eco-friendly/natural items. Look for toys made from solid wood (not plywood or particle board), natural finishes like beeswax or oil (no paints), cotton, wool, etc. I know this is really difficult, but there are many specialty stores that sell that type of thing. You may also look at your dishes and cookware and go for stainless steel, wood, glass.
You can get more info do a search for "lead" there is specific websites that are highly educational I think one is www.EPA.Gov but not sur it has been a while since I looked at them.I do know that lead can come from many hundreds of sources not just in the paint that is in our homes if they were built before lead was banned.I would highly suggest getting on a multivitamin our ped didn't suggest it as a result of lead but for overall good health & the vitmain D recommendation change,also Orange Juice & oranges daily,calcium yogurt,cheese sticks cubes,milk good diet with fresh fruits & veggies this will help her body absorb less of the toxins in lead you can do all this starting today.My kids have all tested very low under 5 it was a 2 or 3 & never was retested even though I do live in an older home that is constantly being remodled by my hubby to get it all updated & worry free.
Home test kits are unreliable the good way is to call the city & ask if someone can come out & check your home that your child is being monitored for lead & need to find where the source is coming from if it is your home pait windows etc they will repair it I heard free of charge here where I live but is it income based don't know that is something you'll have to consider looking into
Some of the cheap jewelry that is given out as party favors have been found to have lead. It's hard to keep stuff out of their mouth when they're your daughter's age, so it's possible she has some toy with lead paint or a party favor she got from somewhere that had lead in it and she teethed on for awhile. Sorry you have to stress about this!!
Blinds can habor lead, as well as plates and cups ( it is in the glasing). You can request a water report from your watercompany. I doubt there is any bad level of lead in the water coming into the house but once it gets into the home's plumbing it is a diffrent story altogether. It is possible, and you said it is an older home, that there are lead connections somewhere. For now there are test at HomeDepo you can buy to test dishes, toys.
My daughter tested a low number when she was young as well. It was determined it was due to my husbands occupation. He worked in an auto paint shop and brought it home on his work uniforms.
I just did a lead training for my daycare license. They pretty much said any house built before 1978 offers concern due to paint and materials used and that could be lurking under newer paint-overs. Old wiring/pipes, etc
It is used in plastic manufactuing (color/ paint) for toys that are red/orange and yellows. When toys are recalled, often it is due to them getting past OUR policies in this country (not sure how..but OK)..and later they find them to be high in lead, so they do a recall.
Thats what I remember from the class....
Good luck.
I am so sorry you and baby are dealing with this. Check out the following four page article. It is quite informative. Let me know if you have trouble accessing it and I will post its main points here:
Sources of lead, according to the article:
breathing or swallowing lead dust or by eating soil or paint chips that contain lead. Lead is not absorbed through the skin.
Even children who aren't chewing on paint chips can get lead into their system if there's lead-based paint in or around their home or another building they spend time in.
Doors and window frames covered with lead paint release tiny particles of lead dust into the air every time they're opened or closed. Kids may breathe in this lead dust or pick it up on their hands
My Dad sent me a tester kit for the kids toys when they were small. I think he got it at a hardware store. Very simple to use. If you can't find it, send me a message and I'll get more info from him.
Any painted wooden toys in the home? She's at that age where she probably puts a lot in her mouth. I'd check out her favorite toys and any furniture in her room.
I'm so sorry that you have to go through something like this. I'm sure I would panic too.
I was flipping through channels the other day and I came to the Dr. Oz show, which I have never even seen before. They had a whole segment on water. One fact revealed is that most of the bottled water on the market is bottled tap water. They ran all different tests on tap water and bottled waters and in the end they said you should test your water and find out what kind of water filtration would be best for your home. Apparently not all water filters (such as Britta or Pur) work for all water types. Also, bottled water companies are NOT required to state where their water is coming from. Check out the Dr. Oz site for more info.
I've been using Nursery Water for my daughter and I don't think I will be using it anymore. I am going to boil my tap water.
http://www.sharecare.com/question/home-filtered-safer-bot...
http://www.sharecare.com/question/test-water-supply-toxic...
