Archivarium 2004

[mbunafan]

This is strange, but I get splitting headaches from graphite, which I believe is pure carbon. Coal and diamond are also carbon, but they do not affect me in such a way. One time in the fourth grade, for some un-Godly reason, I picked up a broken pencil and pretended to smoke it like a cigarette. I got a little lightheaded, and later it became painful. Finally by gym class I was puking my guts out. And in grade school I had usually come home with light headaches, sometime really bad ones. In middle school, when I started writing with pens, they didn't occur as much. I became conscious of the problem, but I didn't know if it was the "lead" or the rubber eraser. A while back I picked up a huge chunk of pure graphite in a geology seminar and held it under my nose. Instant headache. Can anyone offer an explination?

[Laskey]

It sounds like a chemical sensitivity. I say that because allergies, in contrast, are supposed to be a reaction specifically to proteins, not just any chemical. Can you minimize your exposure somehow? If you must work with pencils, some grades of graphite are harder (No.1 pencils are more loosely packed graphite that can smear and travel, No. 2 pencils are a bit harder, and maybe you can also find higher grades than No. 2.) Laskey

[mbunafan]