Thank you for the responses. I am just a little frightened because there is probably around a 90% certainty the popcorn ceiling contained asbestos based on the age of the home based on my research. I am certain to have breathed asbestos even though I sprayed the popcorn down with water because once it fell to the floor, it dried up and would have been stepped on and disturbed by moving the ladder. Also, the more I read I realized that the flooring adhesive may have contained asbestos too. I think the adhesive looked like a light brown glue. Most of what I have read regarding adhesives that were made of asbestos seemed to indicate that asbestos mastics were often black. So hopefully I dealt with a non-asbestos adhesive. I think the flooring squares were wood parquet floor squares so I am hoping that did not have asbestos. I have also read that the concrete slab foundation itself might have contained asbestos and I know I pulverized a lot of that and had a lot of concrete dust flying. Finally, my friend had already torn out kitchen flooring which could have been linoleum the day before so who knows what was floating around that I might have breathed. He also was renovating other parts of the kitchen so goodness knows what kind of dust he created. I don't know how I could have been so foolish but I guess I was young and stupid. Thank you again for your time.

I worked on asbestos legal cases fro 10 years. If you didn't eat or breathe the stuff and it was only over 2 days or so, there is VERY little chance you will ever have a problem. Most cases have people exposed to clouds of asbestos dust daily over years and years, and often these people still never get cancer. Lighten up!

Not every asbestos exposure led to problems: that was in ship yard workers and people who inhaled it daily for some time. And even those, not all of them developed pulmonary problems, and even less developed mesothelioma. There are probably thousands of people who removed their popcorn ceilings and there is not an uptick in asbestos problems. Unless you have symptoms, its probably not worth pursuing at this time.

What is all this fear over asbestos? Only those who worked with it for 30-50 years got health problems.

About 10 years ago, I sprayed down with water and then scraped off a popcorn ceiling. I wore no protection whatsoever...no mask...no goggles...nothing. I was simply helping a friend with some of his work and knew nothing about the dangers of construction materials. So of course after the fact I came across information that most of the popcorn ceilings from the early to mid 1970s contained asbestos. I am quite alarmed right now and plan to talk to a pulmonologist about this exposure soon. I would estimate I spent 10 hours doing this...maybe up to 20 hours. I also used a little mini jackhammer-like tool to pull up what looked to be wooden parquet flooring squares. If I remember right, the glue or mastic holding it was light brownish. I don't recall the wet scraping of the popcorn ceiling creating much dust but I am sure it did create at least some dust and I am sure there would have been some occasional dry scraping of parts of the ceiling missed by the water sprayer. There was quite a bit of dust with the floor removal because the adhesive was so strong that parts of the house foundation were pulverized to get the adhesive up. The house was built on or about 1974 and the popcorn ceiling had glitter. Could someone with some expertise in this area tell me if asbestos in popcorn ceilings was the exception or was it the rule back in 1974? In case the region matters, this was a home in southeast Louisiana. I know it is water under the bridge but I want as much info as possible.