Like mowing the lawn; being around a smell that bothers you; not wanting to inhale hazardous dust
I wore masks before they were a thing. I always wore on planes because the smell of diesel fumes and nasty plane smell made me nauseous. As if the motion sickness weren't bad enough. Any other alternative?
What about when i make laundry soap and the dust from borax is in the air?
TLDR: N95 or KN95 works for small particulate matter. Cloth masks do nothing and surgical masks don't seal well enough. I have tried mulching leaves with my leaf blower with each, and the KN95 works like a charm to keep me from huffing leaf dust (or paint particulates) for hours. That's pretty much their only use.
Don't worry about Borax. Here's WAY too much information on Borax- and there is plenty more.
Breathing borax is fine. It's one of the safest substances in industrial use- the LD50- fatal toxicity- is half that of table salt. The fertility of borax miners has been repeatedly tested, and their overall health and fertility is increased over the general population. Compare that to coal miners.
The reason Borax is so effective as an insecticide is because it provides Boron, which is responsible for rigid cell walls in plants. If you take a bite into a mealy apple, the reason it feels mealy is because it is deficient in Boron- the presence of Boron signals that a plant is healthy. If insects ate healthy plants, we would not have a world to live in. They do not, because God designed them with a purpose, to destroy plants that do not have a use for other living creatures in order to make room and nutrients to build new plants and continually transform and terraform our planet into a hospitable home.
Borax is the sodium salt of Boron and works as an easily metabolized source of this essential nutrient. It is used as a fertilizer, and in conjunction with Boric Acid, is present in every contact solution, and either will cure pink eye and yeast infections overnight. It has been extensively studied as a nutritional supplement for decades under various names including "sodium borate" or "sodium tetraborate", and has the unique quality of being simultaneously almost completely nontoxic while also being therapeutically useful at minuscule doses. The fatal dose of Borax to rats is around 6,000 mg/kg. The therapeutic dose for humans has been repeatedly demonstrated as low as 2mg of elemental Boron and at about 15% weight, that comes out a bit less than 15mg (rounding up a bit), which is barely a pinch. For a 100kg human, the fatal dose is 600,000 mg (600g, which is 1.3 POUNDS of powdered Borax), while the therapeutic dose of 15g is literally 40,000 times smaller, taking barely a pinch a day is enough to cure arthritis in a matter of a few weeks. I had a completely frozen shoulder that was cured within a week of supplementing Borax- I haven't taken painkillers in two years and I have full range of motion, no bone spurs or clicking, and no lingering instability or inflammation. Any time I start to tighten up or feel discomfort or pain or instability, I just take a couple extra doses and there is no pain because it directly addresses the cause of the issue.
Breathe borax. Bathe in it. Drink it. Eat it. It's literally twice as safe to ingest as table salt, which has a fatal dose of 3,000 mg/kg. It is converted to Boric Acid in the presence of HCL stomach acid, which is what your body makes and circulates out of dietary Boron (apples used to contain 20-40mg Boron, now they contain maybe 0.5mg).
The only issues that arise from chemicals like this are when sadist "scientists" poison small animals and pretend like the insane amounts of things they dose their lab animals with that provide essential nutrients are somehow reasonable quantities for humans to ingest or be exposed to. Notice that every time "concerns" are brought up about natural things like Borax- which is mined from dried up salt lakes- they NEVER cite any evidence, but just throw out nebulous "concerns" or "EPA recommendations". Remember, the EPA STILL ALLOWS GLYPHOSATE TO BE SPRAYED ON FOOD DURING HARVEST alongside all kinds of crazy toxic chemicals that are poisoning our world.
And just so I don't join that club of lazy people who spread conspiracies without evidence... here's a starter kit on Boron/Borax/Boric Acid/Sodium Borate "There's Nothing Boring about Boron". https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4712861/
I have been supplementing Boron for a few months to help with my weight lifting and weight loss. 2 Weeks on (8 mg a day) then 2 weeks off. This helps with testosterone and reducing estrogen. Hilltopperpete you are a wise person.
So glad it's working for you! There are very few things I have taken as supplements that immediately changed my life- Boron supplementation (to fix a deficiency that the vast majority of Americans share) is one of the few.
Boron is particularly effective at binding to Fluoride and allowing it to be excreted through urine and helping your body to properly allocate calcium. In combination with Chlorella/Coriandrium (Cilantro Oil), and Vitamins D and K, I lowered my Cardiac Calcium score from over 400 to 0 in a year- that is the primary predictive marker associated with calcification of arteries and is highly correlated with the incidence of heart attacks.
Additionally, I had a large pineal cyst (highly associated with Fluoride intake- I used to drink so much water and I was a competitive swimmer growing up, so I spent around 20,000 hours in the water) discovered on a CT scan in high school that interfered with my melatonin production. This made me more sensitive to sunburns, kept me from sleeping properly, and prevented me from any dreaming while sleeping. After nearly 2 decades of not dreaming, I regained the ability to dream after a few months of the combination detox/supplementation of Boron, D, K, and Chlorella. Now I have multiple vivid dreams every night, and I am again having dreams that appear to mirror near future events (I think we all do, it's just a matter of tracking them). I also have not gotten a sunburn since I started dreaming again, and I spend an hour or two in the sun in the middle of the day every day without sunscreen.
What type of boron supplement are you taking??
Sorry- got carried away. I take Borax- about 1/8th tsp or a pinch in a cup of coffee or a large cup of water maybe every week or two. To start, do that every day for a couple weeks until you feel relief, and scale it back.
The reason it works so well is because it quickly reverses a nutritional deficiency- there's not "magic" effect to ANYTHING, even Vitamin D, if you don't have a deficiency. Just taking something because "it's good for you" is not a good idea for sustainable health. You can safely supplement things you can only get from food, but be careful not to take a bunch of supplements to replace chemicals that your body makes- because it will just downregulate your ability to produce them naturally and make you more dependent on supplements.
Ideally you get everything you need from food and the sun and supplement nothing. Boron only comes from plants and your body does not make it, so Borax is a reasonable thing to supplement long-term, though eating sustainably-grown organic produce, particularly apples- should probably be enough.
Taking extra Vitamin D can help to resolve a deficiency in the short-term, but long-term it is essential to get all your Vitamin D from the sun- there are very important energy absorption effects that only occur with exposure to sunlight, and they have been almost wholly ignored in modern society. Dr. Jack Kruse is the only doctor I have ever heard talk about the role of sunlight, electricity, and physics in the context of human health- he has been curing things that are thought to be absolutely impossible- like vitiligo- for nearly two decades with light therapy and a dietary focus on seasonal, locally available vegetables and fruit with the bulk of the diet being plenty of meats and animal fats and using carbs for their intent- long-term energy storage only. You know... what humans subsisted on for millennia before we had 365 farming and grocery stores.
Borax is the most-studied, with the lowest overdose potential. Calcium Fructoborate is a synthetic reproduction of the naturally-occurring vitamin found in plants, there is also Boron Citrate and Boron Glycinate, but I just haven't found much in the literature to give me confidence that any of those are more "safe and effective" than Borax.
Boric Acid is also very good- and GREAT for eye infections and female yeast infections, BUT does have significantly higher skin absorption than Borax (skin absorption of Borax is functionally zero), which makes Borax better to have around the house with kids and completely safe for things like baths and laundry and dish detergent if you use it for those. Almost all ingested Boron, regardless of the form, is hydrolyzed to Boric Acid within the GI tract in the presence of the Hydrochloric Acid in our stomachs.
Even with its higher skin absorption, it is still VERY hard to overdose on Boric Acid or Borax- the only overdose death I could find in the literature when I was researching this a couple years ago was a man who was trying to commit suicide, so he dissolved TWO CUPS of Boric Acid powder in water and drank it in one sitting in an overdose attempt- and it still took him THREE DAYS to die. There are plenty of mentions of "overdoses" on places like Livestrong and the CDC- but there are never any sources attached to those. I could only find that ONE that was actually written up in almost a century and it was a suicide. I think there was also some lady in the 1920s who committed suicide with Boric Acid if I recall correctly. There were a handful of infants well over a century ago who had issues because their parents were dipping pacifiers in a mixture of honey and borax 10x/day to soothe them, and they all recovered normal function within a few weeks after their parents stopped doing this idiotic thing.
Long story short- Borax is thoroughly studied, incredibly safe, particularly in the minuscule doses needed to achieve therapeutic effect, ridiculously cheap, and useful for all manner of household activities. You have to go WAY out of your way to do something unsafe with Borax, even getting it in your eyes is completely fine as it is the primary active ingredient in contact solution. That's why it works so well in the slime that kids make- and why the only safety issues that arise with slime happen when parents try to use alternatives to Borax since they believe all the lies on the internet about safety.
What is 3 mg/d ? Oh, 3 milligrams per day?
Skin tight respirators with filters. Half respirators are cheap and have replaceable filters.
clothespin on the nose for smells
Hold your breath. It's a safer, better alternative if you're that worried.
Soviet gas mask with the hanging charcoal filter.
Might get some odd looks around town though
I’m a big fan of the Honeywell North 7700 style halfmasks, here’s the filter lineup from Grainger
https://www.grainger.com/category/safety/respiratory-protection/reusable-respirators-replacement-filters-cartridges/particulate-filters-vapor-cartridges?attrs=Compatible+with+Brand+and+Series%7CHoneywell+North+7700+Series&filters=attrs
But this would be my recommendation on what you described— https://www.grainger.com/product/HONEYWELL-NORTH-Combination-Cartridge-Filter-16M230
Thank you for this info , I’m going to order one for my son ! The childhood vax ( I wasn’t awake back then ) gave him, allergy’s, him and millions of people ! This will be great for him as we don’t like using,, or we don’t use pharma pills for allergies ! I found out in my early 40,s that I never recieved chilfhood vaccines .. What’s amazing is I have never, honestly never ever , have been sick with any kind of cold or flu or allergies, I used to wonder why!
https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/p/d/v000057511/
3M makes this widely available(virtually any hardware store) disposable respirator. I have been using these for years for sanding, grinding, painting, etc. They seal very well around the nose and mouth and have a one way exit valve to minimize rebreathing your own exhaust gases/waste. These are the best I have found for particulate protection. The half mask rubber/silicone reuseable masks have the option of chemical filters that can protect you from most chemicals and some gases. They are more expensive up front, but have disposable filter cartridges, similar to a gas mask. They also have full face masks that utilize the same cartridges.
https://www.3m.com/3M/en_US/p/c/ppe/respiratory-protection/reusable-respirators/
Remember to shave
Allergens like pollen can effect your eyes too so you'd need a full face deal or at least some tight goggles to go with a respirator.