An 84-year-old man confounded doctors when he entered a Hong Kong hospital for symptoms of browning of the skin, eyes and nails with complications from blockage of urine flow.

It seemed like an unusual color to doctors because the color had appeared five years earlier when he was being treated for a benign prostate tumor. After several blood tests, it was found that the cause was silver.

While his medication included taking a common antiandrogen called finasteride, this medication does not contain any silver.

The disease, known as argyria, is a systemic buildup of silver in the body’s tissues, according to a case study published in The New England Journal of Medicine. Although this is rare, in severe cases, when there is too much silver buildup, it can make the skin appear blue.

According to experts, this condition will not cause any harm to the long-term health of the patient. Apart from minor cosmetic changes, silver accumulation in the body is mostly harmless unless it reaches very high levels, which will slightly reduce the absorption of some antibiotics and medications such as thyroxine.

There is currently no medication or treatment to remove the slate-gray tone from a patient’s skin, nails, and eyes. However, according to reports, doctors are still investigating the reason behind the accumulation of silver in the patient’s body, as he had no knowledge of any exposure to the metal even during his youth as a waiter.

Argyria was first associated with artisans and miners who worked with silver. However, over the past few years, silver has been used for its antimicrobial properties in many medications, despite warnings from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that this ingredient is not safe and effective in treating any disease or condition. It is believed.

The report notes that treatments that contain silver are readily available around the world, mostly in dietary supplements that claim to remove toxins from the body.