Family got sick, suspect arsenic in water

[carride]

I had a sharp pain in the center of my chest, a funny feeling in my hands, light headedness, of course gastro upset, and generally feeling terrible but not in any way that I've experienced before, not a flu, not food poisoning.

INTA and other agriculture groups have been reporting trichinosis cases on the rise. Be careful when you buy lechón for the holiday party. Some symptoms maybe that you explained

Triquinosis en la mira: tres brotes en Buenos Aires reavivan la alerta en plena temporada de carneadas – ZonaCampo

Tornquist, Azul y Trenque Lauquen registraron casos confirmados por consumo de carne de cerdo sin controles. Mientras tanto, en Escobar y Carhué hay otros focos en estudio. En época de faenas caseras, el riesgo invisible de la triquinosis vuelve a poner en agenda la necesidad de prevención.

zonacampo.com.ar

 

[SlowWalker]

We're actually green here, but the laboratory measurements are best described as obfuscation, here are the latest results for our barrio:

View attachment 10711

The arsenic limit set by the province is much higher than that set by the WHO (10ppB), and they use some unusual units to display the results. Not a good luck, it suggests something to hide.

I would expect well water to have more arsenic, I did't know that contamination would be due to fertiliser, if so, it seems that organic arsenic contamination is much less dangerous. The countryside in zona norte is mostly pasture, I wouldn't expect too much opportunity for fertiliser / herbicide contamination.

Good luck to @Gringo80, doesn't sound like you had a nice experience.

When budgeting allows, I might go for the reverse osmosis solution, though it is much more expensive than the single cartridge filter I have now which also claims to remove 95 - 99.9% of the arsenic.

mg/l is the same as parts per million, ppm
1000 ppb (parts per billion) = 1 ppm (parts per million)

They are showing 0.05 mg/l = 0.05 ppm = 50 ppb as the limit, whereas the WHO sets the limit at 10 ppb
I think India and China have a limit of 50 ppb based on google gemini.

 

[Gringo80]

I got the results of my blood, test taken the day after my illness: no arsenic in my system, which I guess is good news.
But that leaves me at a loss to explain what happened and why I had symptoms that lined up with arsenic poisoning.

 

[elhombresinnombre]

I got the results of my blood, test taken the day after my illness: no arsenic in my system, which I guess is good news.
But that leaves me at a loss to explain what happened and why I had symptoms that lined up with arsenic poisoning.

......which, in my opinion, makes it all the more important that you find out what really affected the whole of your family in this way before it happens again. Food poisoning might just be a dodgy takeaway but CO poisoning could come back and bite you all most tragically if not identified.

 

[Ronnie Hotdogs]

The nitrates limit is also well above international standards.

 

[Gringo80]

......which, in my opinion, makes it all the more important that you find out what really affected the whole of your family in this way before it happens again. Food poisoning might just be a dodgy takeaway but CO poisoning could come back and bite you all most tragically if not identified.

We had family members get sick with the same symptoms in two different households and they didn't share any foods in the days prior. But they did share household, filtered water. Makes me think it was the water.