I’ve recently been very worried I have permanently damaged my brain. About a year and a half ago, my father made me sand 3 bedroom floors in a house made in the 1950s. Two rooms had the floors redone in 1967 and one was original. I had nothing but toilet paper in my ears and a window open; no respiratory protection what so ever. I asked my dad for a dust mask and he told me that he did this all the time and I didn’t need one and that lead is only used in white paint, not floor varnish. So off I went sanding 3 bed room floors while he scraped up asbestos tiles in the basement, again with no respiratory protection… lol
I, about 6 months, later started having problems with memory and cognition and had a constant brain fog that never let up. I never really had any of the physical symptoms for lead poisoning but mentally, I was having serious problems. I went to many doctors and had a plethora of testing done with no conclusive evidence that there was anything wrong. I had 2 blood lead tests and one urine which I don’t think was an evoked test. Both of which came back normal. MRIs, millions of blood tests, and even a spinal tap later and nothing was found. Doctors came to the conclusion that I was nuts and it was all in my head and that I was looking for attention. It wasn’t until recently that I found out that lead can be found in any kind of glaze, varnish, stain, and paint before the 1970s…
So, I was wondering, what kind of damage could I have done to my body? Will have live with this problem for the rest of my life? I’m really scared right now because I don’t know what to do. Is there any way for doctors to see if I have ever been exposed to a large amount of lead in the past year? I was thinking about using one of those lead test kits to test inside the closet, an area where I didn’t sand, and see if it comes back positive for lead. If it does, what should I do? Is there anything I can do at this point?
Thank you anyone who reads this. I greatly appreciate it.