Sign people with neurological disorders.

[chester215]

I went to a wedding last weekend and was by chance seated next to a sign painter (He is very talented) that had been in the sign painting business
for over 40 years and his hand were visibly shaking. Probably un-diagnosed Parkinson's.
I was diagnosed with Parkinson's over 10 years ago, probably because of exposure to chemicals related to Golf Course maintenance.
Some of the places I worked at spent over 100k a year on pesticides and I was the one applying them.

But it got me wondering, do you or do you know of someone in the sign industry with an neurological disorder such as Parkinson's??
Paints may be a little safer now than in the past but they still contain some pretty toxic stuff.
I do not think they are 100% sure what actually causes it, but exposure to chemicals is pretty high on the list of possibilities.

 

[flyplainsdrifta]

I mean, I have GTC epilepsy but mine is not from exposure, had it long before i was working at a shop. But exposure to the tons of chemicals that we tend to deal with on a daily basis would make sense in that regard. Long term exposure to anything chemical related can have pretty bad effects down the line.

 

[Gino]

I knew a guy who worked around electric signs of all kinds his entire life. He was from the old days when ya made the frames outta angle and wrapped the cans with whatever ya had laying around. He did so much welding and with all the bright flashing lights. Any time I was at his shop, he was always cutting or welding something. He started having seizures up in the bucket, so they took him outta that, but as they got more and more frequent and longer, he hadda stop completely. He died at what I consider a young age. He was only about 61 or 62, when he passed.

Also, I knew a buncha guys who eventually got lead poisoning from the paints. It was always under our fingernails, in the cracks of skin and cuts.

 

[pjfmeister]

My Grandfather passed from Parkinson's - hand painted signs his entire life

 

[Souldar]

I know back in the day when I got started (30+ years ago) a lot of the smaller shops were pretty lax about spraying automotive grade paints. Where I worked we had 1 resporator for the guy spraying with 3 other guys working in a room about the size of a double garage. I got unemployment when I got fed up with that and other things about the shop after I put that on my application. Many a sign maker fried their brain those days...

 

[citysignshop]

I too started hand-lettering and spraying paint before we acted on the hazard...we knew about it, but it was just part of 'the job'. Now I wonder when people say...'boy, that Ecosol printer, or..... the laminate adhesive...... really stinks when exposed..."
well, Obviously there's some airborne crap that we're ingesting, just not at levels that are setting off alarms......YET!
There's another generation coming that's going to get some disease from the junk that we've replaced lead paint and lacquer thinner with!