COLLOIDAL SILVER

[Finchman1]

I was reading in the latest QFS Finch news John Albert treats his sick birds with COLLOIDAL SILVER.Anyone else ever used it?

[jusdeb]

It was suggested that I use it to boost my immune system .

Is that what he uses it on the finches for ..antibiotic alternative ?

[Tiaris]

I tried it on a sick RF Parrotfinch a few years ago after hearing JA's talk at the 08 convention. The bird in question was badly ill despite fairly recent worming and baycoxing for cocci. It was to the point where I was certain that if I didn't try something outside the box it would die that day anyway. I gave it 1:200 colloidal silver:water to the beak by eye dropper mid afternoon. It survived the night & died by midday the next day. I consider this a definite tick for the treatment despite the loss of that bird because as I said the bird definitely only had a few hours in it at best without the treatment. If I had found and treated the sick bird earlier I'm confident that it could have survived with the help of the colloidal silver, but if the bird wasn't as ill as it was I probably wouldn't have tried it anyway.

[GregH]

I think this question can be better answered by a veterinarian but I would be very wary about giving any heavy metal to a bird or myself. Certainly siver does have demonstrated antimicrobial properties but like all heavy metals it bioacumulates and high doses in humans have resulted in hemorrhage, bone marrow suppression, pulmonary edema, hepatorenal necrosis but if you're into blue gouldians it may have a use as lower doses result in irrevesable argyria (a blue-grey discoloration of skin, nails and mucosae in humans (read more on Medscape).

[Tiaris]

It was recommended at the convention as a last ditch option when all other options have failed & that's certainly how it was used.

[Danny]

It was recommended at the convention as a last ditch option when all other options have failed & that's certainly how it was used.

Thats a polite way of saying "if its thats close to death then this won't make it worse".
There really isn't any solid SCIENCE to support its use in anything.

[Myzomela]

It's been around in the lay literature for donkeys ages and many people swear by it.

But as Danny has mentioned there is no scientific evidence that it works- just testimonials.

My question is: if it is as good as everyone claims, why hasn't some drug company registered it and made a mint out of it? They are always trying to develop new medications. Here is a readily available product. All they need to do is conduct the trials to prove its efficacy, then patent the product- all at a much reduced cost than trying to develop a brand new drug from scratch.
Why haven't any of the alternative practitioners who recommend it ever conducted scientific trials to prove its effectiveness and published these results?

Western medicine doesn't have all the answers. But every day there seems to be a new "natural" wonder-product that cures everything from AIDS to infertility.
And just because it's natural, doesn't mean it is safe either. Remember chemicals such as arsenic and cyanide are all naturally occuring but no one would ever claim they are safe!!

There is no doubting that there are probably some very beneficial natutrally-occurring chemicals that have yet to be discovered right under our noses.
But there need to be controlled studies & trials to prove both their efficacy and safety. eg if you claim something to be an immune stimulant, you need to show that it causes an increase in one of the body's immune cells or chemicals.

We all wait for these with baited breath..

[Tiaris]

It was never claimed to have any solid SCIENCE supporting its use, just many decades of hands-on experience by an extremely experienced aviculturist who swears by it saving numerous birds (and other animals) over his lifetime where the science-based conventional alternatives completely failed.
I think that if we believe that only the thus far proven conventional modern science-based medications, etc. are the whole answer to animal (or human for that matter) health problems then your are closing your mind to alternatives which MAY work where the scientifically-based options have failed. The are numerous examples of this in human medicine at least.
At the same convention ('08) Joerg Landenberger from Germany also indicated that he used silver-based solutions as effective disinfectants when sprouting seed and that this was a commonly used technique by other successful European finch breeders.
In the parrotfinch example above I certainly did take the approach that the bird in question was near to death anyway so I had nothing to lose by trying colloidal silver & to be honest I had very little faith that it would affect the bird's fate at all. I can't be 100% certain that the treatment resulted in the bird surviving the cold night that it did but I would have confidently placed a large sum of money at very short odds on it being dead well before next morning & it wasn't.

[MadHatter]

I'm on the side of science on this one. There is no scientific evidence for the eficacy or safety of Colloidial Silver. As far as I'm concerned, that trumps any anecdotal 'evidence' that proponents might put forward.

[natamambo]

Silver is used as an antibacterial in many topical applications such as burn dressings and as a sterilsing agent in things like catheters. In these cases the silver is (a) in high concentrations and (b) in direct contact with the bacteria.

The reason why there is no data as to the efficacy of a few grains of silver in "fighting disease" is because (a) and (b) above cannot occur. If the concentrations are high enough for (b) to happen at random as the suspension is carried around the body then heavy metal poisoning is likely to occur.