Colloidal silver
What is colloidal silver?
Colloidal silver - potent antimicrobial and much more
How colloidal silver works
How to take / use colloidal silver
Risks in using colloidal silver
Buying / storing colloidal silver
How to make colloidal silver
References
In 1998 I went to India for a couple of months. July was the first month of the monsoon, and I enjoyed the steamy hot weather, walking everywhere between bus rides. I wore open leather sandals, and my feet got wet negotiating the muddy, smelly puddles. When I got back to Australia, my toenails had turned brown and the skin on my feet peeled with a fungal infection. The infection took years to heal, and it was only in 2007 that the last thick, brown, soft toenail finally reverted to being clear and healthy. The cure finally came several months after I eliminated sugar from my diet, took colloidal silver, and put two drops of strong apple cider vinegar at the base and end of the nail twice a day.
What is Colloidal Silver?
Healers have known for thousands of years that silver prevents disease. Centuries ago, royal families could afford to use silver cutlery and crockery. This was not just for the beauty of the silverware - they enjoyed freedom from infectious diseases, unlike commoners who ate from earthenware jugs and bowls and were more frequently ill. Over the years, minute amounts of silver wore off their utensils and mixed into their food and drink, and their skin and blood developed a slight bluish tint. This is why royalty were called blue bloods. This condition is known as argyria. (Note: you will not get argyria after consuming properly produced CS.)
CS first came into widespread use in the USA around 1900, and was used in mainstream medicine until 1938. Up until 1970, it was common practise for scientists to sterilise a petri dish with a silver coin. CS has been deliberately discredited by the pharmaceutical industry because it is not patentable, can be produced independently of the industry, and is cheap to make.
CS is made from pure water and silver, using electrolysis. The word colloidal means that microscopic-sized solid silver particles are suspended in the water. These silver ions have a positive charge, therefore they repel each other and remain permanently suspended in the water. CS looks like water, though it may sometimes have a yellow tint. You can test that it contains colloidal particles by shining a laser pointer light through it in a darkened room. You can clearly see a pencil of light through the liquid. If you cannot see this pencil of light, then there are no colloidal particles and it is not safe to use. If the edges of this light pencil have a sparkle, then the colloidal particles are large. If there is less sparkle and a clear edge to the light, the particles are small and the CS is of a high quality.
The concentration of silver in the water is usually measured in parts per million (ppm). CS is typically between 3 and 100 ppm. You can measure the ionic portion (the strength) of the CS with a total dissolved solids (TDS) meter.
Colloidal silver - potent antimicrobial and much more
Colloidal silver (CS) is a natural and well-proved antibiotic, antifungal, antiviral and antibacterial liquid. It heals or relieves an extraordinary number of infections and diseases, and helps burns and injuries to heal without scarring. It has no known side-effects when high quality CS is used properly.
CS is the only antibiotic known to kill all types of bacteria, in addition to viruses and fungi. It is a highly effective natural home remedy antibiotic that does not harm your body when used properly.
In contrast, pharmaceutical antibiotics can damage your liver, kidneys, digestive system and many other parts of the body, and leave the colon susceptible to candida and other infections. Pharmaceutical antibiotics devastate the digestive tract, indiscriminately killing both good and bad microorganisms that have taken a lifetime to build up and get into symbiosis. This leaves you open to poor digestion, a variety of infections, inflammation, allergies, IBS, candida and other degenerative diseases caused by bacterial imbalance as opportunistic bacteria and fungi multiply to take advantage of the lack of competition from other microorganisms. Colloidal silver may be used as a treatment for Candida albicans. (1)
Each of the pharmaceutical antibiotics will only kill a few types of germs, with some germs becoming resistant to all these antibiotics (Super Bugs). CS kills the lot.
CS can also be used to provide protection against infections, diseases, contagious outbreaks and serious burn toxicity.
CS has a wide range of veterinary uses, is effective and cheap for swimming pool purification, and is an effective fungicide for gardening and hydroponics. It makes an effective underarm deodorant.
Here is a partial list of the diseases and infections that CS has been used to treat:
acne, allergies, AIDS, appendicitis, arthritis, athletes foot, bladder infection, blepharitis, blood parasites, blood poisoning, boils, bubonic plague, burns, cancer, candida, canine parvovirus, chilblains, cholera, colitis, conjunctivitis, cystitis, dandruff, dermatitis, diarrhoea, diphtheria, dysentery, ear infections, eczema, encephalitis, fibrositis, furunculosis, gastritis, gonorrhoea, hay fever, herpes, impetigo, indigestion, influenza, keratitis, leprosy, leukaemia, lupus, lymphangitis, Lyme disease, malaria, meningitis, neurasthenia, parasitic infections (their eggs are destroyed), pleurisy, pneumonia, pruritis, psoriasis, purulent ophthalmia, rheumatism, rhinitis, ringworm, scarlet fever, septic conditions (eyes, ears, mouth, throat), seborrhoea, septicaemia, shingles, staph and strep infections, stomach flu, syphilis, thrush (yeast infection), thyroid infections, tonsillitis, toxaemia, trachoma, trench foot, tuberculosis, typhoid, ulcerated stomach, virus (all forms), warts, whooping cough, yeast infections (females).
How colloidal silver works
Scientists are not sure about how CS works. The presence of CS near any bacterium or fungus seems to disable their oxygen metabolism, and they usually die within a few minutes. They are then excreted from the body. It is possible that the colloidal particles are an oxidizing catalyst, killing the single-celled organisms with which it makes contact. CS may also interfere with the microbe's respiration by disabling the enzymes on which anaerobic microorganisms depend; tie up the sulphur in the microbe, or short the electrostatic fields in the cell. With viruses, silver may cause the virus DNA or RNA to revert to being undifferentiated; it may also repair the broken segment of DNA of a virus, making it complete but dysfunctional.
When you take a good quality CS, the small-sized colloidal particles are quickly absorbed through your mouth, stomach and upper colon into your bloodstream. The ionic portion of the CS turns into silver chloride and also goes into your bloodstream. The silver chloride plates out onto the colloidal particles already there, and they grow by a small amount. They are still far too small to get caught up in your tissues, and they eventually get removed by the kidneys. So colloidal silver is actually a protection against argyria (see below).
How to take / use colloidal silver
An initial dose is about 20 ml per day at a concentration of 15 ppm - more or less, depending on the state of your immune system and the ailment you are treating. When you are taking CS, you should not get common colds, 'flu (influenza) or other infections. Increase the dose if you do, and lower it if you seem to be protected. You may need to increase this dose by several times when treating some types of infections. Use half the adult dose for children, and a few drops for infants (preferably externally).
Do NOT swallow the CS immediately. Rather, hold it in your mouth and swirl it under your tongue for as long as you can (several minutes). This is the best way for your body to absorb the colloidal particles. The objective is to get the CS into your bloodstream or the injury/infection/problem area, rather than into your digestive tract.
If you take the CS at the same time as eating a probiotic, or fermented / living food like sauerkraut or kefir, it will kill the microorganisms in the food. For this reason I take CS at the most distant time possible from living food meals.
CS can be applied directly anywhere - to infections, burns or open wounds on your skin, fungus affected nails, and as eye, ear and nose drops. It is particularly effective if a dressing is used to keep the underlying wound or infection wet with CS.
Most antiseptics sting when applied to an open wound, because they are damaging the surrounding tissue's cells, but CS does not sting and does no harm to the surrounding tissues.
To treat infections of teeth or gums, hold the CS for as long as you can in your mouth - perhaps 20 minutes. I have a friend who successfully treated a tooth abscess using colloidal silver, and avoided his dentist's recommendation of a root canal. Sometimes CS may not be able to get to the source of the infection inside poor dental work. The solution is to remove the source of the infection - the root canalled tooth or post.
CS kills pathogens rapidly, so your body's eliminatory systems (liver, kidneys, skin, bowels, lungs) may become temporarily overloaded. The resulting toxic overload may mean you feel ill - a healing crisis. Drink lots of water, litres every day, to help flush out the dead microorganisms. Enemas also help.
Risks in using Colloidal Silver
Destroying your digestive bacteria
Your digestive system and especially the large colon contain hundreds or even thousands of different types of beneficial bacteria. Can CS destroy them, in the same way that pharmaceutical antibiotics can ruin your digestive system? The answer is yes, so be careful. If you drink CS in small quantities (less than a small mouthful), nearly all of it will be absorbed through the membranes in your mouth, and particularly under your tongue. Swirl each mouthful around under your tongue, and hold it for as long as you can, rather than swallowing. That way most of it will be absorbed before it reaches your stomach. Your small intestine is also very effective at absorbing CS, and for most people little will pass on to the large intestine where the majority of your beneficial bacteria reside. CS will destroy microorganisms, good and bad, in your mouth, throat and stomach. In summary, if you gulp down a large quantity of CS, this is a real risk. It is also a good reason not to use CS for long periods as an ongoing preventative.
Argyria
When you have silver salts in your bloodstream, they have a strong tendency to bind (plate) with any silver particles they meet. If you have sufficient CS particles in your blood, that is good - the salts bind with these particles. The silver particles do their job in your body and are then excreted. However, if you have no CS particles in your blood, the silver salts turn into silver molecules in your skin. The action of light on your skin is similar to the photographic process that occurs when you take a picture (with a film camera). If the level of silver salts is sufficiently low, the silver molecules are swept out of your skin by the blood flow and everything is fine. However if the level of silver salts in your blood is over some minimum level the molecules will increase in size as the salts plate out on them, growing so rapidly that they become stuck in your skin. The skin takes a permanent black or blue cast. This is called argyria, the result of taking silver compounds without any colloidal component. This is why it is important that you only use high quality CS, and that you use it correctly and for a limited period. The CS should have a high level of fine colloidal particles.
Buying / storing colloidal silver
You can buy bottles of CS in chemists and health food shops. Look for a clear liquid made from 99.98% pure (or better) silver, at a concentration of 15-20 parts per million. You can test for the existence of colloidal particles using a laser pointer (see above), and get an estimation of the concentration using a TDS meter.
Store CS in a dark place, away from electromagnetic fields. It does not matter whether it is kept cold or warm. Light can damage a CS solution, so it should be kept in a dark amber or cobalt blue glass bottle, in a dark cupboard. Electromagnetic fields can destroy the colloidal particles, so keep it away from electric wiring, microwaves, radiation etc. This is why it should not be stored in a refrigerator.
How to make colloidal silver
If you don't have a basic scientific understanding, I would advise you to buy colloidal silver rather than attempt to make it yourself. However, it is possible to make your own CS, and I make my own.
Many different CS generation kits are sold on the internet. There is no control or regulation of the industry, and some kits are sold by charlatans.
It is possible to make your own CS with a nine-volt battery and some silver wire, but it is impossible to make a good quality solution of any strength using this method. Many different CS generation kits are sold on the internet. There is no control or regulation of the industry, and some kits will make an impure and poor-quality product. Here are the features to look for in a CS generator, and how to avoid making a harmful CS solution.
Constant current circuitry. When you first start making the CS, the conductivity of the water is very low. As ionic silver is produced, the conductivity increases and the current increases exponentially. This creates two problems: firstly, the appropriate time for a certain ppm will vary widely depending on the initial conductivity and temperature; secondly, the high current towards the end causes an excessive increase in the particle size, making the solution less than optimum for both stability and effectiveness. Your generator must have electronic circuitry that reduces the current as the solution concentrates. It is almost impossible to produce CS with a concentration of over 5 ppm without constant current circuitry.
I have seen a web site advertising a generator, and describing it as "over-current protected". In fact, it was a 1.5 amp transformer of the kind that you can buy at an electronics store for a few dollars. It had voltage selection from 3 to 12 volts, and no constant current circuitry whatsoever. The "over-current protection" was just a type of fuse to ensure it would not burn out. The amperage was about 1000 times higher than needed to make a good quality CS. Beware!
Stirrer. As the CS is produced, it tends to concentrate around the electrodes, and stirring or movement is necessary to prevent a build-up. Many generators have a small light bulb under the container, and the warmth from the globe creates thermal currents. This is the least expensive method, but not very effective. You can stir it by hand, as long as you won't get bored having to stir it every few minutes over a period of several hours. Other generators use an aquarium bubbler or pump to agitate the water. There is some debate about whether introducing carbon dioxide and dust from the air creates silver salts.
Mechanical stirrers are the most effective, where a motor drives a paddle, moves the electrodes, or moves a magnetic stirrer. Ensure the stirrer turns at a maximum of 30 revolutions per minute, because if they stir too fast there will be a build-up of salt on the electrodes and the CS will be spoiled.
Polarity reverser. During electrolysis, black silver powder builds up on the cathode, and brown silver oxide on the anode. Reversing the polarity of the current every few minutes reduces these build-ups. If you do not reverse polarity then wipe the electrodes after each use without using any soap or detergent.
Electrical current. Most units operate at 24 - 36 volts. The lower voltage units make smaller (better) colloidal particles. The maximum amperage passing through the water should be 1 ma (milliamp, or 1/1000 amp). Higher amperage will create large colloidal particles.
High quality distilled water. Tap water, filtered water and spring water have too high a mineral content to make CS. Rain water is usually too polluted, though in rare cases it is borderline acceptable. Even domestic reverse osmosis water filters usually do not produce the purity required to make CS. The best water to use is steam distilled, or high quality reverse osmosis filtered. You can buy these waters in the household products sections of supermarkets, general stores, and sometimes auto parts stores, or make your own with a steam distiller. You can test the purity of the water with a TDS meter - it should have a reading of 0 - 3 ppm. If you use anything other than the most pure distilled water, you risk having insufficient colloids in your CS, and a high level of silver salts. Salts such as silver chloride or silver fluoride taken without colloidal silver can cause argyria.
Pure silver. Use high quality silver of 0.9998 purity or better. With less than this purity, you may compromise the quality of your CS.
References
1. Roberto Vazquez-Munoz, Miguel Avalos-Borja, Ernestina Castro-Longoria.
Ultrastructural Analysis of Candida albicans When Exposed to Silver Nanoparticles.
PLoS One. 2014; 9(10). Published online 7 October 2014. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0108876. PMCID: PMC4188582. PMID: 25290909.