Does the flesh on the side of your face bubble and melt whenever you take a call? You might have contact dermatitis triggered by nickel, a common component in cell phones’ casing. From Reuters:
“It is worth doctors bearing this condition in mind if they see a patient with a rash on the cheek or ear that cannot otherwise be explained,” it [the British Association of Dermatologists] said. … Many doctors were unaware mobile phones could cause the condition.
Safety concerns over mobile phones has grown as more people rely on them for everyday communication, although the evidence to date has given the technology a clean bill of health when it comes to serious conditions like brain cancer.
Nickel is present in 10 of 22 popular handsets, Reuters reports, but it doesn’t chance to name them. As a result of this report, BBG recommends that you immediately stop eating cell phones until the Chinese government takes action.
Wow – Thanks for the heads-up! – as a stereotypical freckley red-head maybe I was bound to suffer from nickel contact allergy – and it STINGS. I’ve long chosen things that I ~wear~ (shoes, watches, sunglasses etc) with that in mind, but I’d never have considered mobile phones as a threat…
http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/content/full/178/1/23 for those who want to read the article: the list of phones is here:
http://www.cmaj.ca/content/vol178/issue1/images/medium/14TT1.gif
My son gets a rash wherever nickel touches his skin. We noticed it when he was a baby, he’d get pus-filled blisters if you put him in clothing with nickel-plated snaps. More recently he got a huge inflammation on his chest from wearing a cheap dragon pendant around his neck all day – but at least he didn’t cry and tear at himself for days like he did as an infant.
Only nickel does it – he’s not sensitive to any other metal and has no allergies that we know of – he’s not even bothered by poison ivy or mosquitos, just nickel.
Gotta post anonymous, my children hate it when I talk about them to people they don’t know.