Fibreglass sickness

[Zba]

Hi there,
throwing this out there, might help someone.

Here I am once again in bed with a bronchial cough and itchy eyes. What happened? I am Covid negative, don't have a pet and don't suffer from allergies.

Well a couple of years ago I bought a roll of insulation for a project. I thought it would be safe enough, what with green credentials and all. I thought it was rockwool -the name kind of implied it might be that.
Anyway it turned out to be fibreglass. After a couple of weeks I got rid of it because I was coughing a lot. I also didn't realise that everything needs to be thoroughly cleaned or thrown out. Fibres might be sticking to clothes or furniture.

I've done a lot of reading since then, obviously. Mainly people saying "Haha yes it is itchy!", and a few talking about lung damage.

So, even after a couple of years, having tried to clean as much as I could, there always comes a point where the itch is back and I'm in bed for a few days with that cough. Could be from an old backpack, a few fibres on the back of some furniture.

Anyway, don't flame me, I said I was naive at the time, and the product was seemingly green.
Hope one day I can move on from this. Can't even get an office job -too paranoid the fibres will be on my clothes one day and "infect" other people.

Thanks.

You need to go and chat to your GP about anxiety. Fibreglass cannot infect anyone else. You should use protective clothing and wear a mask when handling it but a small number of fibres won't cause any issues. It isn't the same as asbestos.

Or it could be that you are not immune to the many, many respiratory viruses that literally everyone gets from time to time?

Hi both,

thanks for your answers.
Yes, there is anxiety there after what happened to me the first time round.
Getting the exact same harsh thoat cough and stingy eyes is a reminder.
Yes, it could be any virus.

I used "infect" as a shortcut. A quick Google reveals "Can fibreglass spread from one person to another?".
The Quora example is workers in a loft, one is downstairs, but the fibres will "transfer" to him through contact with the clothes or the small space of the van.

Anyway, that's it from me.

I assume you aren't wearing the same clothes as when you handled the fibreglass and that you have had a wash since then? So there isn't any fiberglass on you to get on anyone else?

You definitely need to see a doctor, OP. It's not normal to be avoiding a particular (very common) type of job because of the fear of some tiny fibreglass fibres from years ago.

People get colds all the time: annoying and occasionally very debilitating, but normal. Your cough and itchy eyes are much, much more likely to be a virus than some years-old fibreglass in a house that will have been cleaned many times since then.

Itchy eyes are a fairly unremarkable cold symptom: it's not proof of fibreglass.

Please see a doctor, I promise you you're not going to transmit tiny fibres to people. Do you socialise, etc?

Thanks for the answers,

They're quite helpful. The 1st occurrence was more than "a few fibres", more like contaminated household (many of that online).
So yes, since then I've become overcautious.
A few others online seem to be in the same disposition.

Yes, I'm starting to move-on. These answers of yours make sense, and my mental health can only get better.

Thanks all.

I agree with the previous poster. Get yourself to the gp and get some propanadol and some councilling and hopefully that will start to help. Hope that at the very least your house is benefiting from being warmer than it was.

I agree with chatting with your GP about your anxiety.

Many people have fibreglass insulation in their lofts, so avoiding working in an office in case you have some fibreglass on you, which feels unlikely, is overkill when everyone around you may come into contact with it anyway when they go in their lofts.

What do you mean by your house was contaminated? What were you doing with it?

We have a roll of this stored in a loft cupboard, and on a couple of occassions have carried it to other places in the house to add insulation to little nooks and crannies. We always wear a mask and long sleeves when using and moving it, and wash our hands and the clothes we were wearing at the time.

But I can't see how just having and using a roll in the house has 'contaminated' it and everything in it - to the extent that you have been throwing posessions away. What happened to contaminate everything?

Hi, Thanks for your comment.

(Others, do not worry, I am moving on)

It's a flat. The insulation was bought for an audio project, not insulation. While not quite an "arts project", it was by no means a pro-build project.

A simple weekend DIY thing.

I'd already heard about natural products being used in buildings. I thought that was one of them when I saw it in the shop.

A big piece of insulation stayed for a bit too long in a corner of the room.
That's why i ended up with a layer of dust on a bag.
This seems like a naive approach. Well, read 1st post.

Lots of people ready to say "I'm a professional, never had a problem", "Wear PPE". So tell me what kind of problem would happen if I had a problem. Hindsight is too easy.
Every year we see BBQs starting fires. That's from people who've known all their lives about fire.

Also, with the news, recently, about mouldy households, and obviously, about Covid (even if some said it was "nothing"!) I hope we've learned a bit.

So thanks again for your comments. As I said now I'm moving on.