what goes up must come down

Since I work in a lead refinery it’s to be expected that I would be exposed to lead in a lot of forms… solid, liquid, gas (fumes), dust. And since lead isn’t good for your body, we take a bunch of precautions to minimize our physical exposure to it. We wear coveralls, boots, a hardhat, gloves, safety glasses, and a respirator. But inevitably lead gets into your system. So, we have a medical team that monitors the blood lead levels in all Teck Cominco employees.
When I started at Teck in March my blood lead level was very low, basically nothing, but since starting work my lead level has risen, after a month (I got tested mid-April) it went up to 9 (parts per million) and then by the end of June it jumped up 12 points to 21. Yikes! So I was a wee bit concerned. So I tried some health store remedies (pills for heavy metal detox – probably good and footpads – probably a scam), took extra care to eat before work (eating helps block the absorbtion of lead into the bloodstream), was even more vigilant to clean up (hand washing, etc.) and reassessed my use of safety gear (mainly just making sure I was wearing my respirator at all times). And yahoo! It’s working! After a month my lead level has dropped 4 points to 17ppm. So, I’m going to keep at it and see how low I can get it.

Just to keep things in perspective, the average blood lead level for my shift is around 24, the allowable safe level is 30, and it becomes a concern to long term health around 60 over a long time.