craving milk. smelling plastic...some sort of exposure??

so as the title says, i crave milk all the time. i always liked drinking milk but not its about all i want to drink.
the past week or so i have been smelling plastic all day no matter where i am.
think if you buy a brand new plastic thermos when you open it to wash it for the first time. that overpowering smell of plastic. or the way a newly opened pack of balloons smell. thats what i smell all the time.

i have to say it is starting to worry me. i am wondering if i got exposed to something at work.

i work around a lot of raw material. bronze and copper alloys. there is lead. raw zinc.

a guy i work with said he either head or read that being around the zinc can cause you to crave milk.

radiation maybe?

last week i was using a portable nikon scanner for about 9 hours straight.
i dont know the model or what material it uses but it is a rad gun and it does emit x rays.
of course i do not point at at myself but my face gets pretty close to the end of the gun because i have to make sure i am level/flat/centered before i start to scan.

i have this plastic type ring i have to wear on my finger that keeps track of how much exposure i get but the company only sends them in to be tested like every 45 days.
so if i had too high of a blast last week i wont know for more than a month.

i was gonna hit myself with a geiger counter but i cant find one at work. i dont think we have one.

im wondering if it is the zinc/lead particles i am inhaling. i am wondering if the rad gun malfunctioned. other people use it as well but they might only use it for a half hour or so. when i use it is it all day.

i also have to inspect bars that have come back from heat treat(outside company).
before they go to heat treat they are still as cast but the surface is smooth and clean.

when they come back, they look like have have a rusty dusting on the outside. that is the best way i can explain it.
so i am handing these bars, taking various measurements. rolling them on the table. doing this and that and my hands wind up looking brownish red. if i clap my hands for example, you will see a little puff of this dust.

just starting to freak. i dont know if i inhaled something or if something got into my system from a cut on my hand.

hell, it may be nothing at all but i do have the milk craving and the plastic smell.

If you are experiencing a 'Phantom Smell' I would suggest you get yourself checked out.

a reply to: TinySickTears

Any beryllium in the copper alloys?

Look in to purchasing your own rad badge or ring. Most change colors to let you know what level of radiation you are being exposed to. I wonder why they have to send the rings off to measure ?
Also , go see a medical professional for the symptoms.I have spells that last for days where all I can smell is a terrible smell. That turns out to be medicinal in my case.
And the lead part. You do wear filtration masks I hope

originally posted by: butcherguy
a reply to: TinySickTears

Any beryllium in the copper alloys?

that i dont know. i dont make the charges or run the chems. when i use the rad gun the elements flash and i really only pay attention to silicon.
when i am done i dump all the scans into my report. i might go to work tonight and pull the reports to take a look.

i had to inspect a bunch of 844 red brass this week.
i know that is

zinc, tin, aluminum, antimony, copper, sulfer, iron, led, phosphorus, and nickel.

i had work with 688 which i think is copper, chrome, lead, nickel, titanium, aluminum, and iron

the other 2 i work with most is 4880 and 4881. those are the ones that i get post heat treat with the dusting on it.
the base on those is aluminum, bronze, and nickel.

originally posted by: Gothmog
Look in to purchasing your own rad badge or ring. Most change colors to let you know what level of radiation you are being exposed to. I wonder why they have to send the rings off to measure ?
Also , go see a medical professional for the symptoms.I have spells that last for days where all I can smell is a terrible smell. That turns out to be medicinal in my case.
And the lead part. You do wear filtration masks I hope

i dont know why they send the rings off to measure. i kind of found out by accident. everyone that uses it has their own ring. it is like translucent pink plastic with a white strip with a bar code on the inside and the persons name.
i have never worked with rads before so i didnt know how it worked. i assumed it would do whatever it does immediately if there was too much exposure.
well the safety director came down and was talking to my boss while we were going on about something. this was in my office. safety guy asked if we had formal training on the rad gun. of course we have not. he said the health department is coming in next month so we have to do training and get it into our computer so they can have a record of it.
then by boss started talking about sending our batch of rings for testing and the safety guy gave him a new pack for us.

it really pisses me off. even if my issues are not because of this.
it really is a point and shoot device. big caution sticker. harmful radiation...still, even though it is simple i would have liked some specific training.
it was never even mentioned till now. so now that the health department is coming in, its an issue.

they did not seem too worried about me having my own ring either. when i first started they told me just to wear the guys ring who i replaced. i thought to myself that it was strange. it would not give an accurate measurement of what i personally was exposed to.
i didnt give it much thought past that. naive i guess but i figured it is no big deal. of theyre not worried about it is is probably just a cover their ass type of deal. no real danger.

bronze and copper alloys. there is lead. raw zinc.

You really want to go have a tox screen done. If your getting deposits in your brain, lymph system, organs.....it is not a good thing.

originally posted by: DAVID64

bronze and copper alloys. there is lead. raw zinc.

You really want to go have a tox screen done. If your getting deposits in your brain, lymph system, organs.....it is not a good thing.

i had a lead test done a couple months ago when i started. to get a base level. we only get tested 3 times a year though i know though.
also, about the respirator question.
i do not wear one. i dont get to the production side too much where the raw materials are. the guys making the charges and running the furnaces have to wear them.
even all the support people on the production side dont have to wear a respirator.

I'd also ask/pull the MSDS sheets for everything in your work environment. You should get a list for the doc, just in case.

originally posted by: Cobaltic1978
If you are experiencing a 'Phantom Smell' I would suggest you get yourself checked out.

I agree here, phantom smells can be quite telling. They say if you smell toast its a sign of a stroke. Obviously your not having a stroke but you should still get it checked out asap. I hope its all ok and just a bit of harmless dust stuck up your nose.

a reply to: TinySickTears

Could you describe the smell as something like almonds?

An almond smell could be from cyanide, which is used in case hardening steels in a furnace.

Either way, talk to someone 'official' at your work about the smell and the desire for milk, and then also get some medical advice, too.

It's no good to anyone if you are poisoning yourself.

I think you need to go in and get some testing done to see if you have accumulated too much of a metal in your body or blood. Most will show up on a blood test. Copper can cause a few symptoms that can be a little like that but it has other symptoms that you did not mention. Zinc can increase hormones, increase metabolism, and help to smell things. Maybe you are sweating out some chemicals and smelling them. If you get a zinc overload and eat something from a galvanized can like beans, they will taste like metal. Just drink out of a galvanized cup, that also can be used to test.

Your exposure to a lot of metals means you need to get a blood test to find out what it is. The albunim in milk can tie to the metals and make them not absorbable sometimes, but eggs work a lot better for that.

originally posted by: rickymouse
Maybe you are sweating out some chemicals and smelling them.

that is interesting.
i sweat a ridiculous amount. look like i have just come out of a pool.
far more than most.
medical issues and meds i take make it hard to regulate my body temp.
everyone else will have a little bead of sweat and i will be soaked

originally posted by: TinySickTears

originally posted by: rickymouse
Maybe you are sweating out some chemicals and smelling them.

that is interesting.
i sweat a ridiculous amount. look like i have just come out of a pool.
far more than most.
medical issues and meds i take make it hard to regulate my body temp.
everyone else will have a little bead of sweat and i will be soaked

If you consume food chemistry that your liver and kidneys cannot handle your skin can take care of excreting it. Acetelaldehyde is often sucreted by old people through the skin. It is an aldehyde, which can possibly have a plastic like scent to some. The old people smell.

If you are low in the aldehyde dehydrogenase enzyme it builds up in the body. That enzyme utilizes molybdenum. Molybdenum supplements can also help to lower other metals from the body. Strangely, a very bioavailable form of this mineral is in milk. Molybdenum helps you utilize sulfur compounds better but it won't do much if you are not deficient. You do not need a big supplement of this mineral, just a little over a hundred percent is all I need. I do have a problem with the MOCS1 gene though, but that is not a rare thing. It just reduces the amount of the enzyme produced, being deficient in molybdenum can actually add to the problem.

By adding the molybdenum to my diet, my old person smell went away. I was too young to have that smell, I am only fifty nine.

I have had both the milk craving and the olfactory hallucination recently but not at the same time. The milk craving was was vitamin and mineral deficiencies. Sometimes too much of one mineral can lead to a deficiency of another, so that is worth getting tested. I never did get get an answer on the smell, but it went away within a few days environmental change. It was not a smell that came from the previous environment though because I was the only one who smelled it, and the smell traveled with me.