According to the UK's Telegraph, mobile phones are responsible for yet another one of the great terrors of the 21st century: dermatitis. Apparently, "skin specialists" have discovered that certain metals used in cellphones are causing some users to suffer inflamed, reddened, dry, blistered, and cracked skin. Sounds awesome, right? It seems that about a third of heavy talkers are sensitive to nickel -- a substance commonly found in gadgets -- which can become irritating after repeated exposure. Says Brown University's Dr. Lionel Bercovitch, "Given the widespread use of cellphones, the presence of metal in the exterior casing of these phones and the high prevalence of nickel sensitization in the population, it is not surprising that cellphones can cause allergic contact dermatitis." There's probably little you can do to out-and-out escape the problem, so we suggest full face mask whenever a call needs to be made -- also, for dinner parties.
posted October 18th 2008 1:26PM
blue . . . tooth . . . ?
I got a rash on the interior of my ear canal from using a family members bluetooth headset (it had a metal in-ear part). Obviously this nickel thing isn't exclusive to cell phones.
The report is not all that out of the blue either, since there's beenfocus on nickel in the EU in the past. I believe the EU has passedsome directives or regulations or what have you that prohibitsjewelry that's stated as "silver" from having any nickel contentwhatsoever. I believe this contrasts to say, the US, where there'sno such rule. The nickel content in jewelry marked silver hadgenerally been some really small amount, too, I believe. Withattention previously paid to nickel's impact on individuals, it's notsurprising this topic rears its head again in the news.
It would be surprising if anyone actually did something about it though...
I looked it up. Silver isn't mentioned.
It just says that piercing posts have to be less than 0.05% nickel content. And that jewelery (including watches) cannot transfer nickel to the skin at a rate greater than some figure for the first 2 years of normal use. That means that those things can have nickel if they have a coating over them that doesn't have any nickel as long as the coating lasts 2 years under normal use.
What the heck is wrong with my keyboard? Probably has nickel....
Get a phone without a physical keypad, if I could afford the contract on the G1, Storm, or iPhone I'd already have one.
In the manual for my Nokia 6300 it reads:
"Warning: The Navi key in this device may contain Nickel. It is not designed for prolonged contact with the skin. Continous exposure to Nickel on the skin may lead to Nickel allergy."
Well that's cool.
I have a great solution for this problem: people need to get unallergic to nickel.
Well thanks for the warning, I was wondering why one side of my face was red and swollen in the shape of a keypad for years now, glad I found someone smart enough to explain it.
Spy shot of the new ambidextrous Freddy? Nice!
My wife's Motorola Razr V3 gave her a pretty serious allergic reaction. While the nickel on the phone as the source may seem obvious in retrospect, it took several doctors before we found one who suggested nickel as the culprit. Now that she has switched to a old Nokia 6682 (from the doctor's list of nickel-free cell phones) and eliminated a couple pieces of jewelry found to contain nickel (both gold and silver jewelry) things are noticeably better. Plenty of jokes here in the responses, but it wasn't a lot of fun for my wife until we figured out what was going on.
Seems poor parenting that she only found that out after marriage and not when she was a kid.
Wow. This is sort of dumb. We in the eyeglasses business have known for ages that some people are allergic to nickel, and that these people need to wear titanium or acetate-rimmed spectacles if they want to avoid having burn marks on their temples.
It took mobile phone manufacturers to catch up?