Q: My wife started taking colloidal silver with good results. She gave some to my grandsons, and they had good results. Being a skeptic, I looked through my newsletters to see what the alternative medical field had to say. I could only find one reference and that was negative. That doctor said it was totally ineffective and too much could actually turn your skin gray.

Do you have experience with colloidal silver? What is your opinion?

JVW: Colloidal silver was used by many “regular” medical doctors in the early part of the 20th century. Prior to the introduction of sulfonamides and antibiotics in the years before and after 1940, there was actually little else that had much effect in killing micro-organisms.

I’ve worked with colloidal silver since its “revival” in the 1980s and have found it to be very effective at fighting infections of all types — bacterial, viral, and fungal. In fact, its effects are so strong that I believe silver could be the key to fighting the antibiotic-resistant “super bugs” that have become such a problem in recent years.

I recommend two particular silver preparations, Argentyn 23 and Sovereign Silver, which are available from health care practitioners, natural food stores, and compounding pharmacies.

It is true that overuse of silver has caused a documented skin condition called argyria, in which the skin turns a variously described bluish-gray or grayish-blue in localized areas. This condition typically occurs in people who use very large doses of silver over long periods of time. To avoid this possibility, it’s important to stop using silver once the infection you’re treating has gone away.