Long-Term Health
Protecting your body and hearing over a career - the health risks the trades do not talk about until it is late.
7 guides in this section
Guides in this section
I worked around asbestos years ago. Am I at risk, and can I claim?
You can be at risk decades after the exposure, and yes, there is a real compensation route even if the company you worked for is long gone. Asbestos diseases...
How do I claim workers' comp for an illness the job gave me?
You file a workers' comp claim like any other, but for a disease you have to prove the job caused it, and that is where most of these claims are won or lost....
Will the tools wreck my hearing and give me white finger?
Yes, both, if you use loud and vibrating tools for years without protection, and both kinds of damage are permanent. Noise from saws, breakers, and pneumatic...
Is breathing welding fume going to make me sick?
It can, and what you weld decides how dangerous the fume is. Welding fume is not one substance, it is a cloud of metal oxides and gases whose toxicity...
Your body is your livelihood. Protect it for the long haul.
The injuries that end careers in the trades are rarely the dramatic ones. They are the slow, silent ones: your lungs from dust, your hearing from noise, your...
Is the dust from cutting concrete or quartz countertops damaging my lungs?
Yes, very likely, if you cut, grind, or drill concrete, stone, brick, or engineered quartz without dust control. That dust contains respirable crystalline...
How do I protect myself from skin cancer working outside?
Cover up, use sunscreen on what you cannot cover, take breaks in shade during the middle of the day, and get any changing mole or non-healing sore checked...