Ananova:

A Californian nicknamed Papa Smurf has revealed how he accidentally turned his skin permanently blue.

Paul Karason, 57, from Madera, appeared on NBC's Today Show and spilled the beans to host Matt Lauer.

He suffered from stress-related dermatitis after his father's death 14 years ago, and decided to treat it himself with home-made colloidal silver, an old medicine widely used before the discovery of penicillin.

Of his Papa Smurf nickname, he said: "It's everywhere I go... I've gotten kind of used to it. I'm rather inured to it."

To confound his problems, Karason's self-prescribed medicine did not even cure his dermatitis.

But, he said, he has "no more acid reflux, no more sinus troubles; my arthritis went away."

Silver was still found in some over-the-counter medicines in the US until it was banned in 1999 because it causes argyria - the condition which turns the skin blue.