Paul Karason took too much colloidal silver. It's a wonder he isn't dead. (Photo: sonofmacenstein.com)

If you’re into miracle health cures that don’t involve proper diet and exercise, you’ve probably heard about colloidal silver. Even if you aren’t into magic elixirs, you’ve probably heard mention of colloidal silver’s healing properties. As the L.A. Times recently documented, there are those that believe that all the silver found in sprays, soaps, toothpastes and drops has the ability to kill germs, boost the immune system and improve overall health. Even though the EPA and OSHA have labeled it potentially toxic, colloidal silver is reputed to help against AIDS, cancer, malaria and athlete’s foot. I hear it also keeps away werewolves with athlete’s foot, in case you’re wondering.

Take too much of it and you’ll turn blue

Like Paul Karason and Montana politician Stan Jones before him, you’ll find that colloidal silver can collect under the skin and reacts with sunlight, turning the skin a soulful, permanent shade of blue. As Karason said on a recent episode of the “TODAY” show, it gets old. He’s “anxious to try green,” he says. I’m anxious to see if no faxing payday loans could help him get enough money together for a skin bleaching.

This is the second time Paul Karason has been on TODAY. They invited him back on the show in part to check up on his health, as somebody who consumes enough heavy metal to change the color of their skin is not typically someone you’d image would live very long. Yet amazingly, he’s still alive and can joke about his perpetual predicament. Doctors have detected no adverse reaction in his internal organs.

He’s been hounded by the Smurf-minded

Karason, 58, has moved between Oregon, California and Washington state to both get away from snide remarks (he even broke an engagement to marry) and to obtain medical treatment for issues stemming from a blocked artery and prostate cancer. He was able to obtain the treatment he needed in Bellingham, Washington.

“You can actually get health care up there,” he said of Washington. And he praised the quality of care found there, too.

What is it and how do you make colloidal silver?

Colloidal silver is a suspension of silver sediment that is created in a distilled water liquid base. Silver used to be the A1 agent against bacteria, but penicillin came around and stole its thunder. Traces of silver continued to appear in some over-the-counter meds until 1999, when the FDA banned it because it is the cause of argyria, where the silver collects in the skin and internal organs. Paul Karason is the poster smurf for this condition.

You can buy colloidal silver through semi-underground means, but if you’re enterprising like Paul Karason, you can make your own colloidal silver through electrolysis. His initial reason for using the silver cure was to treat a stress-related skin condition that appeared after his father died. Karason still uses it on occasion, but rarely due to the prohibitive cost. Of course, no faxing payday loans are an option for some in their pursuit of colloidal silver, but I wouldn’t recommend it. I say we should trust the expertise of doctors (and hopefully a universal health care system) and use silver and gold to make money, not medicine. Auric Goldfinger would have wanted it that way…

Related Video: