Colloidal Silver

what is colloidal silver?

Colloidal silver is a heavy metal that has been hailed as a cure-all by many supporters of natural medicine. There are many places to find DIY colloidal silver kits, instructions on making your own colloidal silver at home, and lots of testimonials and rhetoric about how colloidal silver can help you with your health problems. Whilst other heavy metals such as lead, mercury and aluminium get a bad rap (they deserve it), somehow silver slipped under the radar, and has remained a toxic substance that is continued to be taken internally by many around the world. Thankfully we stopped taking mercury and lead as oral “medicines” a long time ago. It’s time we stopped taking silver internally too. Silver is up there with mercury and should be avoided like the plague. Colloidal silver belongs back in medieval times. Not in the 21st century.

Dangers of colloidal silver

Silver is a heavy metal. It is toxic to the nervous system and the damage can be irreversible. It can accumulate in the brain, spinal cord, bone marrow as well as in the organs. It can take years to clear out all the silver that gets deposited in the various spots around the body.

There are lots of really great topical and internal antibacterial and antifungal herbs you can use instead. See a herbalist who knows how to construct a powerful custom herbal formula if you are dealing with an infection that you’re trying to clear. Chinese medicine has a fabulous arsenal of herbs to help combat whatever type of infection you are dealing with.

Luggols iodine can be a great topical antibacterial (although not near mucous membranes!).

Most of the medical info about silver toxicity talks about liver failure and kidney failure as things to watch out for, and implies that in the absence of irreversible organ damage that everything is "fine". However it's also acknowledged that people who end up with skin discolouration from taking silver orally for too long - the skin discolouration is permanent because the body can't get rid of the silver.

Have a read of this for a general overview of the medical literature on silver - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3003978/

what about using it topically? (on the skin)

Taking internally and applying colloidal silver externally to the body is a different equation. The amount of silver that is absorbed into the skin is a lot less than what is absorbed if taken internally. Silver is used in mainstream medicine for wound healing in silver embedded bandages - the silver in this scenario tends not to be absorbed into the body - rather it stays in the local tissues. Silver is known to impair leukocyte levels - and people with severe burns are monitored for their leukocyte levels and treatment stopped if their levels drop too low.

the colloidal silver that i use is safe because it isn’t like the other forms of colloidal silver….

Silver is a toxic metal. The medical research on using silver has been done on topical use of silver for burns. As for using silver internally, the research shows silver to be toxic and cause liver and kidney damage.

Some brands of colloidal silver claim they are safer than other brands because they have ionic silver.

Crash course in chemistry: metals are either in metallic form or ion form - and the ion form is the one that is more readily absorbed into the body.

If a colloidal silver product has silver ions this is the more absorbable form of silver and is more toxic. If it contains chunks of silver in metallic form, it’s not so well absorbed but the stomach acid could probably break it down to release the silver ions. Either way you end up with a heavy metal inside the body. There is no such thing as a high quality colloidal silver product that contains a safe form of silver. The only safe product is one that doesn’t have any silver - ionic or not. Silver ions (vs silver metal) are the more toxic form to humans. But ultimately both forms when ingested put a huge load on the liver and kidneys to be able to excrete them.

what to do instead of taking colloidal silver

Please do not take colloidal silver. If you are a practitioner - please do not give your patients colloidal silver. Please tell any patient who is taking colloidal silver internally to stop doing it.

See a herbalist who can construct you a custom herbal formula to help you clear your infection, or use Luggol’s iodine topically if you want to clear an infection on or near the surface of your skin.