On Tue, 19 Jan 2016, gareth wrote:

Woke up with a headache this morning, not having consumed
any contraband yesterday (Oranges plus the Three Cs, coffee, chocolate
and cheese are my migraine triggers) and decided it must have been
the unventilated act of soldering in a confined space, all because
I couldn't be bothered to extract the 12V fan that I keep to waft the fumes
away.


Is this a common or well-known problem?

I've never had a real problem, and I've been soldering since 1971.

Every so often I might breath in more smoke and cough, but that might be a
reaction to something else, every so often I can go into fits of coughing
without any noticeable reason.

It's the lead in the solder that's got people scared. But that's a long
term thing, and I think much of the worry is to children, where it affects
the growing body more than the full sized body. Remember, there were
those stories in the sixties about kids in the ghetto eating paint, and
suffering, because the paint had lead in it.

Since I was 11 back then, and have never suffered mentally they way they
say lead would affect people, I think there's nothing to worry about.

On the other hand, maybe it did diminish my capacity, but it was so much
better to start, I never noticed.

Michael