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Metal finishing Q&As since 1989
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Zinc cyanide poisoning
I have been seeing a naturopathic doctor for a year and half. I have never been healthy in my life. Recently I started a new job in a building that is 120 years old and I work in the jail. There have been renovations going on and things being torn out and all. I went to see my doctor a week and half after I started work and did not feel quite right. He detected high levels of zinc cyanide in me. I am following his treatment but am wondering how I would go about testing the work place area for this. Is it an air quality test or does it have to come in chemical powder form? I would appreciate any info.
Margaret M Pennings2006
2006
Anything is possible, Margaret. The jail may have at one time been a plating shop or a cyanide production factory or storage warehouse. Or cyanide may have been used as rat poison or for general vermin control, or for a one-time fumigation. Electronic monitors are available that continuously sample the air for cyanide.
But I would be suspicious when a blood test indicates "Zinc Cyanide" because the zinc and the cyanide are two rather separate halves of the chemical compound, and a blood test may indicate cyanide or zinc or both, but I don't think a blood test would show that the source of the cyanide was zinc cyanide. Don't overdo the almonds, apricots, apple cores, or lima beans before your next blood test.
![Ted Mooney, finishing.com](../portraits/ted_mooney_beach.jpg)
Ted Mooney, P.E.
Striving to live Aloha
finishing.com - Pine Beach, New Jersey
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