"Saxophone Lung" Disease

[Michael Bishop]

Hey guys,
Thought you might like to see this article that was shared with me regarding some research that was conducted and presented by the American College of Allergy, Asthma, and Immunology’s Annual Scientific Meeting in Baltimore regarding Woodwind players who develop a rare disease called “Saxophone Lung” a form of allergic pulmonary disease that can occur from fungi build-up in the instrument. Not sure if everyone would agree with their research, but I remember about 2 years ago seeing/relating a case where this very same thing occurred with an older gentleman here in Little Rock. In any case, make for some pretty interesting research/information.

http://www.medicaldaily.com/clarinet-player-who-didnt-clean-instrument-30-years-develops-saxophone-lung-allergic-reaction-fungi

[Anonymous]

Thanks Michael – my wifes an asthmatic from being a child, so am familiar with the aspergillis spores etc. she recently had a course of steroids to sort an infection.

From now on i shall definitely be washing out the sax pull through every week, probably start steralizing the reed as well.

This is what happens when food handlers don’t wash your hands after a dump
http://www.nottinghampost.com/Nottingham-kebab-shop-owners-sentenced-140/story-27854987-detail/story.html

[Michael Bishop]

By sharing that article with everyone here–it was e-mailed to me–I am NOT promoting/endorsing that information. I work in the Medical field and naturally found it quite interesting. Johnny has obviously been playing for years and my guess is that he probably wouldn’t totally agree with that printed information, but it’s interesting reading material and it’s open to debate. Personally, I think it can depend on where you live/climate; the article made no mention of location or take that into consideration. In areas that are humid and mold tends to be a bigger problem like it is here in the south, then it could happen because I’ve seen it one time a couple of years ago. I don’t think there’s any need to be a fanatic over it or anything, just be aware of it and take simple precautions to care for our Saxophones..obviously the people that do get what they call in that article “Saxophone Lung” disease aren’t taking care of their instruments and just neglect them. In any case, here’s a couple of videos below that the good folks at Massullo Music (I bought my Trevor James Saxophones from them) posted a couple of years ago about taking care of our Saxophones. I think it would be cool at some point if Johnny could get together with them and make a video on Saxophone maintenance/things to watch for/needs replacing as the years go by-cork, pads, etc..

[Marc]

Oh, my… Fungi were really patient with this man, holding 3 decades to take action on him LOL.
How in this Earth a woodwind player can leave his instrument accumulate spit, dirt, etc for so long… I wonder how that noble clarinet was still sounding.. ouch!

[Michael Bishop]

Tell me about it…it takes extreme neglect of our instruments for this to happen. I live here in the South with a very humid climate and I saw it happen to one man; it’s not the ‘norm’ by any means.

[Anonymous]

I’m glad Michael raised this, because the pull through cloth that i clean the inside of my sax with – has not been washed in the last 6 months and is spit smelly dried out every night!

The reason why i posted the wash your hands – this happened near where we live, i nearly bought a take away from there!

But seriously its important to wash hands, not just to get crap off, but in the garden you can come in contact with weed killer chemicals, the leaves of some plants are also quite dangerous.
If you have nut allergies …

The only other thing i always do before playing the sax is brush my teeth! The thought of bits of food being stuck inside my sax isn’t very nice.

My daughter never cleaned her clarinet after playing – and i ended up having to have her clarinet stripped down and cleaned out with new pads fitted! cost me nearly $400 (wasn’t too pleased)

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