A homemade silver solution for a flu-like illness left a patient with the permanent blues after he developed argyria, SA doctors report.

The 63-year old was brought into an Adelaide ED after a fall with a prolonged floor lie of two days, complicated by urinary retention and acute kidney injury in the context of peripheral neuropathy.

On examination, his skin had a blue-grey discolouration, most prominent on the sun-exposed areas of his face and neck but also evident around his fingernails, reported doctors from the Flinders Medical Centre and the Royal Adelaide Hospital.

“Further discussion revealed that the patient had been using a homemade silver solution to treat a flu-like illness during the [COVID-19] pandemic as he had read online claims about the antiviral properties of silver,” they wrote in the Medical Journal of Australia.