The real life Papa Smurf?

December 21, 2007 8:44 PM

The man with blue skin. No, not these posers, but this guy. Fifty-seven year old Paul Karason has blue skin. He drinks colloidal silver which can cause a medical condition called argyria.
posted by MaryDellamorte (70 comments total)

So far, Karason hasn't sought any medical attention for his condition. When he was asked if he's still drinking the colloidal silver, he said yes, but much less.

WTF?
posted by delmoi at 8:48 PM on December 21, 2007

You use a quack treatment, you get what you deserve. I don't feel any sympathy for this guy at all.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 8:49 PM on December 21, 2007

Maybe he could be the front man for a themed amusement park... Adventures in Smurf Land.
posted by thewalrusispaul at 8:50 PM on December 21, 2007

I saw this yesterday on CNN, and he's apparently moving to California because he thinks people here will be more open minded about his appearance. Good luck with that, Papa Smurf.
posted by dhammond at 8:53 PM on December 21, 2007 [3 favorites]

It's not easy being blue.
posted by nola at 8:54 PM on December 21, 2007

From what I've heard and seen, it's more grey than blue. But teh MSM like to call it blue coz... that's cooler and more comic superhero-like, I guess.

My high school chemistry teacher said that a lot of workers in 19th century silver mines had the same condition.
posted by uncanny hengeman at 8:55 PM on December 21, 2007

I feel cheated. He doesn't look like Mystique at all!
posted by sonic meat machine at 8:56 PM on December 21, 2007

He should get a mohawk, and a talking hat.
posted by Artw at 9:01 PM on December 21, 2007

His song.
posted by eye of newt at 9:02 PM on December 21, 2007

Stan Jones, a Senate candidate from Montana in 2002 and 2006, had the same condition after worrying about Y2K medicine shortages.

I still swear not all Libertarians are crazy. This one is, though.
posted by lauranesson at 9:02 PM on December 21, 2007

Papa Smurf!


Watch out, I hear he's a commie
posted by PhatLobley at 9:02 PM on December 21, 2007

OK, I read the title and my joke is second-hand. Apologies, MaryDellamorte.
posted by PhatLobley at 9:05 PM on December 21, 2007

Poor guy. Many people get the blues around the holidays.
posted by chococat at 9:08 PM on December 21, 2007

Maybe he could be the front man for a themed amusement park...

...or a MetaFilter mascot. He's even got yellow and white highlights. Matt?
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 9:08 PM on December 21, 2007

I still swear not all Libertarians are crazy. This one is, though.

First the gold standard, and now the silver. Ron Paul is bringing back the Bronze Age!
posted by dhammond at 9:14 PM on December 21, 2007 [2 favorites]

I once met a chiropractor with argyria, wearing a gold chain beneath his open collar. Ergo, I have never visited a chiropractor.
posted by Ambrosia Voyeur at 9:24 PM on December 21, 2007

My dad once went to a chiropractor for back pain. The quack told him his auras were messed up and the fraud offered to fix it with his magnets for just a couple hundred bucks.

My dad left.
posted by Pants! at 9:27 PM on December 21, 2007

Matt should do this.
posted by LarryC at 9:48 PM on December 21, 2007 [3 favorites]

I knew someone who nearly turned blue doing this.

Hey there, hippies, fringe-folk, libertarians, homeopaths, orgone accumulators and other wackos and weirdos! Listen up for an important science message:

Collodial silver is a nice, but very mild topical disinfectant and antimicrobial. That's all that it is. You're not REALLY supposed to drink the stuff at all, but especially not every day or every hour like I've seen some nutmeat-eating freegan-fruitarians do.

And considering the shabby, unsanitary conditions under which most collodial silver is made, it's worth or merit as an antiseptic is dubious.

IT IS NOT A PROVEN ALL-PURPOSE CURE-ALL LIKE FUMING MERCURY AND LAUDENUM, MOLTEN SULPHUR AND BLEEDING THE HUMORS WITH LEECHES. STICK WITH THE CLASSICS, FOLKS!
posted by loquacious at 10:10 PM on December 21, 2007 [9 favorites]

I actually think it would be cool if more people were that shade of blue-grey. It'd feel all Star Trek.
posted by logicpunk at 10:16 PM on December 21, 2007

I once went to a chiropractor. And then my back stopped hurting! What crazy quackery!

(Anyway, there seem to be lots of Chiropractors that are quacks in various other fields, but the spinal adjustment stuff seems to be supported by evidence.)
posted by delmoi at 10:37 PM on December 21, 2007

Delmoi, the stuff chiropractors do might make your back feel better, but they aren't adjusting your spine. Your spine is protected by lots of muscle and tissue and isn't going to be shifted around by somebody massaging your back.
posted by sevenyearlurk at 10:44 PM on December 21, 2007

I heard this story from my parents. That was back when both of them were working in the same ICU, so they treated a lot of cases together. Anyway, that one time they got a guy brought in, drunk as hell and really, really cyanotic. He said he felt fine and no one could find anything wrong with him, other than being drunk and blue. So they left him hand cuffed to the gurney for observation, and a day later, when he sobered up, it turned out that he got drunk on some kind of a wood stain and it turned him blue. That was back when Gorbachev tried to dabble in prohibition...

Collodial silver is a nice, but very mild topical disinfectant and antimicrobial. That's all that it is. You're not REALLY supposed to drink the stuff at all,

And considering that there are more bacteria in your gut than there are cells in your whole body, and you really need them there to help you digest stuff and outcompete other, harmful microorganisms, you really don't want to sterilize yourself.
Oh, and just because you got in touch with your inner child does not mean you shouldn't listen to people who went to school and actually learned what was being taught.

I once went to a chiropractor. And then my back stopped hurting!
And it never hurt again?
posted by c13 at 10:46 PM on December 21, 2007

I once went to a chiropractor and the guy made me hold herbs in my hand while he pressed down on them to find out if my body needed them or not. Turns out the herbs he said I needed made me sick.
posted by Holy foxy moxie batman! at 11:07 PM on December 21, 2007

The funny part of this: one report I read quoted the guy as not believing the treatment gave him the blue skin.

And on the news of the weird side, when was the last time you heard of University football players being on the victim end of a sexual assault.
posted by Mitheral at 11:32 PM on December 21, 2007

If this guy had jaundice, he'd be the Incredible Hulk.
posted by aftermarketradio at 12:07 AM on December 22, 2007 [8 favorites]

I once went to a chiropractor, and then I died of cancer.
posted by "Tex" Connor and the Wily Roundup Boys at 12:46 AM on December 22, 2007 [2 favorites]

sevenyearlurk: Before making an ass of yourself, I suggest you find out what real chiropractors actually do. Whether it is worth while or not, they do adjust the spine. And it isn't with "massage". And I've been to an osteopath that also do chiropracty, where appropriate (best back treatment, ever!). As for massage, German Krankengymnastic is the best. (Frau Glabish, you rock!)
posted by Goofyy at 2:59 AM on December 22, 2007

I like how he's moving from Oregon because people in town "weren't very nice" to him. By that, I imagine he meant that folks were saying things like, "Paul, please stop drinking the colloidal silver." "WTF Paul, you're still drinking that colloidal silver?" "Paul, you glistening gray-skinned dumbass, DO NOT drink the colloidal silver!" "STOPIT! YOUR FUCKING LIVER AND KIDNEYS! JUST STOPIT!" "Oh lookee, here comes the Grizzly Adams of asshats. Commit your slow suicide out of my eyeline, plskthx."

Everything about this guy seems to scream Pay attention to ME! Although I have to admit that as horrible skin conditions go, this one is much more pleasant than the guy covered with toenails.
posted by maryh at 3:32 AM on December 22, 2007 [8 favorites]

I once went to a chiropractor too. The exercises he gave me for my back were so repetitive and boring that I didn't want to do them. Maybe I should have, because I still have a bad back. But wow! were they repetitive and boring.
posted by tellurian at 4:00 AM on December 22, 2007 [1 favorite]

IT IS NOT A PROVEN ALL-PURPOSE CURE-ALL LIKE FUMING MERCURY AND LAUDENUM, MOLTEN SULPHUR AND BLEEDING THE HUMORS WITH LEECHES. STICK WITH THE CLASSICS, FOLKS!

Ooooh! Or trepanation! That's my favorite all-purpose cure.
posted by grapefruitmoon at 4:30 AM on December 22, 2007 [1 favorite]

Not to be confused with blue skin caused by inbreeding.
posted by stavrogin at 4:36 AM on December 22, 2007

Ooooh! Or trepanation! That's my favorite all-purpose cure.

Wow, this could totally save CBS during the writer's strike- Kid Trepanation Nation! I'm seeing the Variety pages now- "A Hole in Son!" but more likely, given our political climate, "Pill Kills Drill Thrill Mill: Lulz Dulls as Pols Mull Skulls "
posted by maryh at 5:05 AM on December 22, 2007 [2 favorites]

I love how a place that sells colloidal silver sets also warns against the use of monoatomic atomic gold because, well, "the initial growth of psychic awareness is not permanent, but rather levels off and later declines. Further, she says that the promotion of mono atomic gold is an Illuminati deception. While attracting the public with sugar plums of enhanced psychic clarity and improved health, the ulterior purpose of promoting mono atomic gold is to cause the destruction of the ten additional virtual DNA strands which all humans possess and which are now manifesting into 3D reality as seen with the 3, 4, or even 5 strands of DNA that now show up in the blood of Blue Indigo (Millennium) children."

It's Science people!
posted by robocop is bleeding at 5:22 AM on December 22, 2007 [2 favorites]

I've seen one with the same condition in my home town, but he looks more like blue/gray version of old William Burroughs, an elder gentleman in brown suit and hat. First time you see him, it really messes your sense of reality. Did I just see what I saw? Am I absolutely sure this just happened, and I'm not remembering a dream from last night? I have no inkling of explanation, how could anybody have blue skin, so did I really see that or not? It is reassuring when you hear that other people have seen him too.
posted by Free word order! at 5:25 AM on December 22, 2007

It'd feel all Star Trek.

Not without those little white horns.
posted by bwg at 5:28 AM on December 22, 2007

That guy could make a ton of money LARPing.
posted by MegoSteve at 6:01 AM on December 22, 2007 [1 favorite]

That guy could make a ton of money LARPing.

I just want to point out that this is the first time this sentance has been used in any context ever.
posted by Joey Michaels at 6:12 AM on December 22, 2007 [10 favorites]

this is the first time this sentance has been used in any context ever.

I think you mean "...this sentence in any context evar". AMIRITE?
posted by flapjax at midnite at 6:39 AM on December 22, 2007

The blue Fugates, etc.
posted by generalist at 7:05 AM on December 22, 2007

I once went to a chiropractor. I had back pains and couldn't move my foot in a certain way, so he did an x-ray and followed it up with a back adjustment. Then I could move my foot fine, and I went back regularly so as to avoid future back pains. Total quackery.
posted by Ndwright at 7:09 AM on December 22, 2007

I once went to a chiropractor. He tried to adjust my back and it hurt really, really bad. Turned out I had a 11 mm ruptured disk and he didn't notice it on the xray. I was bedridden for a month.

Chiropractors aren't allowed to touch me anymore.
posted by miss lynnster at 7:27 AM on December 22, 2007

When I was an undergraduate, I chiropracter came to my "Health and Wellness" class. I took "Health and Wellness" to evade some other stupid class - bowling or walking or something.

Anyway, he stood at the front of the lecture hall and told us that he could, as a chiropracter, cure someone's allergy to peanuts.

I have never been to a chiropracter. Quackery, indeed.
posted by Baby_Balrog at 7:41 AM on December 22, 2007

I went to a chiropractor once when a friend of mine browbeat me into accompanying him.

On the way out, I saw a plaque he had on the wall that said "If the germ theory of infection were actually true, then everyone would have died of disease long ago."

I've never been back to him or any other chiropractor, since. 50% decent medicine + 50% bullshit does not make a good physician.
posted by darkstar at 7:58 AM on December 22, 2007

So...from smurf guy to Chiropractors We've Known. Another fine Mefi tangent.
posted by Jilder at 8:10 AM on December 22, 2007 [2 favorites]

We have a profoundly blue Argyrian regular at the food co-op in town. Thing is: he has a very young son, and my wife has noticed that the boy is looking gray, now, too. I am very close to posting an AskMe about what, if anything, we can legally do to stop this asshat from turning his kid blue for life.
posted by everichon at 8:46 AM on December 22, 2007 [1 favorite]

A few weeks ago, I met a woman who drank colloidal silver. She waved off all my warnings about turning blue with a "Damn. That'd be kinda cool." She was also a Ron Paul voter. No kidding.
posted by octobersurprise at 8:48 AM on December 22, 2007

People with argyria remind me of Ursula K. Le Guin's book "The Lathe of Heaven" (so very highly recommended!) where George Orr - whose dreams become reality - dreams of a world where racism no longer exists. And when he awakes, everyone is the same shade of grey.

[I think this guy looks amazing, btw. In a good way. I wish him well in California and am sorry Oregonians didn't treat him with more kindness. He should have come up to Portland, though. He would have been an instant and beloved celebrity overnight]
posted by Auden at 9:00 AM on December 22, 2007

everichon - report him. NOW.

Q. Who do I contact if I suspect child abuse?
According to ORS 419B.015, "a person making a report of child abuse shall make an oral report by telephone or otherwise to a local Child Welfare office of the Department of Human Services, to the division's designee, or to a law enforcement agency within the county where the person making the report is at the time of the contact."

Child Abuse and Neglect Reporting Numbers (Oregon)
posted by Auden at 9:14 AM on December 22, 2007 [3 favorites]

I went to a chiropractor once a week or so for a couple months. I got awesome back massages by clinical massage therapists, and then the chiro would come in and crack my back in the same places I crack it myself when I do my stretches every morning. I'm pretty sure the cracking didn't do anything, but thanks to the massages my neck and shoulders never felt so relaxed.

And the best part was my insurance paid for it.

A++++++ WOULD GO AGAIN
posted by misskaz at 9:23 AM on December 22, 2007

I went to a chiropractor once. He told me that the root cause of any illness is "will".
posted by jokeefe at 9:24 AM on December 22, 2007

I went to a chiropractor once. He told me that the root cause of any illness is "will".

You must find this "Will" and kill him.
posted by hob at 9:33 AM on December 22, 2007 [6 favorites]

What a buffoon. Colloidal silver? Why would anyone take that when they could take chlorine dioxide, the Miracle Mineral Supplement, and be disease free for the rest of their lives? I guess some people just like being ripped off.
posted by Justinian at 10:19 AM on December 22, 2007 [1 favorite]

Not to be confused with blue skin caused by inbreeding.

Nor the blue skin caused by living in the desert and being awesome.
posted by WidgetAlley at 11:40 AM on December 22, 2007 [1 favorite]

Any post about blue men needs a little Lucky Diamond Rich.
posted by box at 1:13 PM on December 22, 2007

I love eating this glass....Coincidentally, my anus is always bleeding.
posted by Megafly at 1:27 PM on December 22, 2007

I once had 3 warts, one between my toes, one on the back of my left hand, and one on my right forearm. In the interest of science and statistics, I conducted an experiment.

I showed the toe wart to a homeopath, got a "take 3 drops of this very 2 hours for 3 weeks" treatment. I showed the arm one to a dermatologist, and he froze it off with nitrogen. Finally, I showed the hand one to a herbalist, and she prescribed a nasty herb infusion, 2 liters a day. If I'd had a fourth wart I would have done the dead cat in a cemetery at midnight treatment.

Three weeks later, the wart between my toes had "crawled out", with a very long white conical root, leaving a conical hole in my skin. I tugged at it, and it came off with a tiny drop of blood. On my arm, I had a nasty scab that hurt and itched like crazy, now I have an ugly scar. The one on my hand seemed to have been reabsorbed into my healthy skin, but I still have a different texture on the skin there.

The interesting part is that the hand and toe warts reacted to their own treatment, ignoring the other one.

Conclusion: The mind is an amazing thing.
posted by Dr. Curare at 2:49 PM on December 22, 2007 [1 favorite]

I really wish I hadn't been eating food when I read about the white conical root of your wart crawling from between your toes. I mean, Holy. Fucking. Hell.
posted by miss lynnster at 5:21 PM on December 22, 2007 [1 favorite]

Unless you've had a serious trauma, back pain is all in your head.

Chiropractic (or accupunture, etc..) will give you a placebo effect - temporary relief. You believe something is being done to relieve your pain, so it goes away (for a short time).

There is no proof that a bulging, slipped disc causes pain. A "compressed" nerve in your spine has no physiological link to pain.

Google "Dr. John Sarno". Uh, yeah, I thought this was rubbish, too- until it cured me.
posted by wfc123 at 7:42 PM on December 22, 2007

We've discussed argyria before.
posted by MrMoonPie at 8:18 PM on December 22, 2007

A "compressed" nerve in your spine has no physiological link to pain.

With all due respect, what a frightful load of horseradish!

Still, I am glad that you personally found relief in your anecdotal experience with the good doctor's remedies.
posted by darkstar at 11:31 PM on December 22, 2007

By which I mean to say that Sarno's methods may have some beneficial effect, but it is way over the line to suggest there is "no physiological link to pain" when a spinal nerve is compressed by bone spur, trauma or slipped disc. To the contrary, the physiological link has been extremely well documented.

That's not to say that some back pain may not be assuaged by "mindbody" therapies such as Sarno's, or by chiropractic spinal adjustment, of course. That's quite conceivable.
posted by darkstar at 11:45 PM on December 22, 2007

We've discussed argyria before.

Over five years ago. I'm sure most of the people in this current discussion weren't around for the first one.
posted by MaryDellamorte at 1:50 AM on December 23, 2007

I'm sure most of the people in this current discussion weren't around for the first one.

Which is a good reason for linking to it in a comment in this current thread, no? Nothing wrong with a look back to what people have said about this 5 or 10 or 20 or 100 years ago.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 6:06 AM on December 23, 2007

You can believe what you want to believe. You think cavemen had sciatica, or even a "charlie horse" because they didn't stretch before they ran after their dinner every day?

It is all in your head. And stretching before running is a waste of time, by the way.
posted by wfc123 at 9:51 AM on December 23, 2007

Fuckin' cripples. Just stand up and walk already you big crybabies!
posted by Justinian at 12:27 PM on December 23, 2007

LOL, Justinian!

wfc123, yes, I actually do believe that cavemen, as with all humans, probably had inflamed sciatic nerve conditions and charlie horses and all manner of physical ailments that weren't merely the result of some mental issue.

Just because your personal experience with back pain turned out to be psychosomatic doesn't mean that there is categorically no basis for physiological nerve pain in the back.

Frankly, you sound a bit fanatical even suggesting it. Or, you're deliberately pulling our legs. (Ow! my leg!)

But, eh, to each his (or her) own.
posted by darkstar at 2:32 PM on December 23, 2007

That book helped me. It was a good tool to use to get me to think about my injury differently instead of just giving up and letting a neurosurgeon fuse my spine, which I would've regretted for the rest of my life. My back feels much, much better nowadays (knock on wood), and a lot of it is due to lifestyle and attitude changes (I stay active, I don't bend forward much, I don't lift things, and I try to be positive and mellow as best I can because I hold my stress right where my injury is).

But when you have a ruptured disk, and compression of your spine, it IS a real injury. You can make it better or worse by how you live your life and use your brain (and how lucky you are), but you aren't imagining that your body has a severe problem that can cause mind-numbingly excruciating pain. Spinal injuries are permanent and it's a rollercoaster you have to deal with, there are ups and downs. AND IT SUCKS. Especially since spinal tissue doesn't regenerate like other places on the body which is why even Christopher Reeve was never able to just "get up and walk" like he swore he was going to do.

So I'm glad you're not in pain, but you have to respect that your injury is unique to you and all spinal injuries are very different -- all BODIES are different. A lot of people don't have their particular pain go away no matter what they try. I was lucky, although it took about 5 years for mine to go into remission after reading that book, and the book had little to do with what ended up really helping me.
posted by miss lynnster at 8:46 PM on December 23, 2007

Oh, and lumping in acupuncturists with chiropractors is just about the most irritating thing I've read all day.

Dire infection in open wound on my foot?

Dermatologist: "Oh, it looks fine, I wouldn't worry about it, we'll culture it just to be sure."

Acupuncturist: "Jesus fucking Christ, who is that dermo kidding? That is INFECTED as hell. Here, let's get you started on some herbs that'll help your body fight it and hope dermo gets a clue."

Sheepish dermo, a few days after that, paraphrased: "Whoops, my bad, guess that skin that looked like a necrotic zombie corpse was infected with just about the worst type of staph you can have short of MRSA, and now we shall try about 5 different types of increasingly strong antibiotics to try to kill it over the course of the next two months."

Acupuncturist, and me: "DUH!"

My foot: [ooze, ooze, ooze]

Properly trained acupuncturists (read: not MDs who take a weekend course and are then permitted under state law, but nowhere near qualified to practice) are an incredibly useful adjunct to the Western medical system and often offer insights that some MDs miss in their quest to just throw drugs at you and get you out the door. Those who are also trained to practice traditional herbal medicine, like mine, have a whole 'nother level of competence those chiro-quacks can't possibly live up to. So lumping them together is incredibly unfair, and ignorant, too.
posted by bitter-girl.com at 12:29 PM on December 24, 2007 [1 favorite]

(in reference to:)

Chiropractic (or accupunture, etc..) will give you a placebo effect - temporary relief. You believe something is being done to relieve your pain, so it goes away (for a short time).
posted by bitter-girl.com at 12:39 PM on December 24, 2007