#Cobalt toxicity symptoms series#

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#Cobalt toxicity symptoms series#

The Florida legislature passed a series of new laws in March 2023 that, for example, reduced the statute of limitations (the time in which you have to file a lawsuit) for negligence cases from (4) years to (2) years. The article above raises the question of how many hip patients may have symptoms not attributed to their metal hips gone wrong and how many may never know why their health suddenly went downhill. The company promises to settle more cases as they come in. Clearly there needs to be more interpretation of MoM poisoning in clinical practice.ĭePuy, a unit of Johnson & Johnson, has offered $2.47 billion to thousands of hip implant victims who required early revision surgeries to remove the DePuy ASR metal-on-metal hip.

It was thought that cobalt was stabilized when combined with chromium and molybdenum but when metal-on-metal parts grind or ceramic debris is left behind to corrode the metal, the stage is set for metal toxicity. The Lancet article also points to the exposure of steel workers to cobalt who developed cardiomyopathy. The foam of their beverage had been stabilized with a substance that contained cobalt. Without any symptoms of a failing hip it’s difficult and unlikely that cobalt poisoning would be diagnosed, reports her transplant specialist at the University of Colorado.Ĭobalt poisoning was first identified among beer drinkers in Quebec in the 1960s. Her metal-on-metal hips were replaced, both of them, with a polyethylene liner which brought the cobalt levels down. Blood tests revealed cobalt levels 300 times normal and her cardiologist suspected the toxic metal was poisoning her organs. Her heart was failing and she underwent a heart transplant in September 2011. The other article appears in The New England Journal of Medicine (February 6) concerning a woman from Denver who had suddenly gained 10 pounds, felt ill and had fluid accumulating around her heart. Juergen, along with others and concludes “cobalt intoxication is an increasingly recognized and life-threatening problem.” The article in The Lancet, “Cobalt intoxication diagnosed with the help of Dr.

There was no fever but his eyesight and hearing were never restored to normal. After his metal hip was replaced, his heart function returned almost to normal.

Apparently when the patient’s original ceramic hip was removed it broke and left pieces behind that ground into the new metal hip. This particular man had a metal hip implanted in November 2010 just before his symptoms began.īlood tests show his cobalt level was one-thousand times over the normal level. Juergen remembered the diagnosis after similar symptoms presented – cobalt poisoning from an artificial hip. Schafer, of Phillips University, Marburg, who happened to be a fan of the television show “House,” about a cantankerous doctor with uncanny diagnostic powers. The article reports the ailing man ended up in the German clinic of a Dr. A hip implant at the center of a medical mystery? Go figure.