Kenzie_POM

Hey ya'll,

Hope everyone is well. Just wanted to share and give a beware. Last month I was clearing out a section of the back yard. Knocking down brush etc. Well, I got into some poison something. I don't know if it was oak, ivy, or sumac. Truthfully, I never saw the plant. Got on my right leg then spread to my left. Painful painful pain......ful. So much so, I saw my doc. He let me know it was bad and I appeared to be having an allergic reaction. Got a steriod and an anti-biotic shot in the offce and an appointment for the next day. Next day not any better. So, three days in the hospital for moi. Massive amounts of IV anti-biotics and IV steriods plus steriod topical. Even had a doppler done on both legs. They were worried about blood clots. Standard CXR per infectious admission protocol. Kinda scary there for a while. Cellutitis and contact dermatitis was the DX. All is well now. Will not have scars.

Be careful in the woods ya'll. Plants have power. From now on out, I will be wearing long pants, sleeves, gloves etc when clearing out brush. I still haven't found out if the plant was ivy, oak, or sumac.

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Cheers then~

Happy Growing

Kenzie

lorax

EEg... I'm glad that only a few tropical plants cause contact dermatitis. Poor you! Glad to see that you're ok now, though.

D_&_T

Kenzie, do you carry an EPI-pen now, since was such bad reaction?
Asking as 2nd exposure will be worse.

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Tog Tan

Hey Kenzie, I know how it feels to get zapped like this. Though there are many poisonous plants here, nothing has bothered me till I had a pretty bad experience with a rotting tuber of Alocasia lowii grandis. I was washing off the rot with a hose and some of it splashed onto my hands and legs and the next thing I knew was like I had acid all over me. Not cuts whatsoever. Though I didn't get bummed like you, I had to take a couple of anti irritant caps and then just lie on my bed with the air cond for hours. I guess your preventive measures would be helpful. Hope you get well soon.

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Tog Tan has sadly suddenly passed away 6/16/09. We will miss you Tog Tan.

Patty in Wisc

Glad you are OK Kenzie. I learned to always wear shoes outside now. 3 yrs ago I got a light bee sting on bottom of a toe & ended up in E room. My throat was closing up & I had hives all over me. I now carry a epi pen with me as they said next time it will be worse. Hope you get one.

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Got a lite?
Patty




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Patty in Wisc has sadly passed away 9/05/11. We will miss you Patty.

lorax

Tog - Aroid sap can be remedied by dousing the affected area immediately in alcohol. I like Aguardiente for this, but Vodka is probably your most available bet.

Tog Tan

Thanks for the tip Lorax. I keep many spp of Araceae but this is the only one which is so 'lethal'. I consider myself a 'thick skinned' fellow and never had any problems as I always trek in the jungles here barefooted, something I learn from my long association with the aborigines. I guess I am highly allergic to this spp's enzymes.

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Tog Tan has sadly suddenly passed away 6/16/09. We will miss you Tog Tan.

Chironex

Only experience I have had like that was from a Man-O-War sting and another time with Fire Coral. I feel for you on that one.

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Scot

MediaHound

Sorry to hear about that Kenzie... glad all is well now.

@Lorax I wish I knew alcohol was the elixir for remedy when I bit into some Alocasia and it burned my mouth once a few years ago. Good tip, thanks.

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Apologies in advance if I am slow to reply to your PM. I suggest posting in the forums for support if you need something urgent.

Kenzie_POM

Hey ya'll,

Thanks all for the well wishes. Dan, Tara, and Patty - I am going to talk to my doc about an EPI-pen. I can just see myself getting an insect sting, more poison whatever, even spider bites. I have even been bitten by a pygmy rattlesnake. That one did leave a scar.

It's all good.

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Cheers then~

Happy Growing

Kenzie

bepah

I use alcohol daily as an internal preventative.....

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John Case
Rookie Gardener, Veteran Drinker

Lagniappe

Kenzie, I'm so sorry that you had to go through that. I've been able to handle poison ivy all my life.....until last year. I had a vine growing on a tree between my house and the neighbors place. We were cleaning that area, removing fallen branches and leaves, when we decided to pull the vine down and haul it to the compost pile. Actually, we fell a tree with a large vine in it and we were cleaning up the debris. He and I both agreed that it had never had an effect on us......that was the last time either of us would make that claim.
I was wearing shorts and apparently brushed the most potent portion of the Ivy against the bend of my knee. I had a slight tingle in that area for a few hours, slight itch for a few hours more, and an intense,blood wrenching,nerve twisting, neuron tweaking, nightmare for many days to follow.
Mind you, I never had a hospital stay (though I considered it), it was a very scary week. My leg doubled in size and just I knew that it would explode or leave its epidermal prison and make out on it's own. I couldn't sleep for the pulse that I could feel screaming it's way through it,wondering if it was carrying infection to the rest of me. I could hardly walk, hardly work,hardly live. There was a huge lymph node swollen in the bend of my hip, like a stowaway trying to be inconspicuous but standing out as if a rumor had been started and it was the brunt of the joke. I felt that my leg was a goner. I even accepted the fact. In my mind there was no way that a body could go through all of this and remain in one piece. There was no way that a simple round of steroids and antibiotics could turn back the hands of time and undo the damage caused by this Hellspawn of a plant. I didn't leave the house at all for that week.
I eventually recovered, praised my God,and spoke to my neighbor. He had a bad reaction to it as well.
I was warned, same as you, that the 'next time' could be much, much worse.
For this reason, and for my former experience, I watch my surroundings very carefully.
I noticed,while doing some yard work, that yet another vine had climbed the tree next to the stump of the tree that we removed. This was a formidable vine, complete with berries and the like. I knew what had to be done......it must die ,as must all of its kind. I planned to get some weed killer....you know, the kind that's marketed for the control of poison ivy(can't blame the folks for playing on our emotions toward this plant, that's just business). Before I could get to it, my daughter and her friend (BFF they call em' nowadays) had wandered into the bastards realm and fell victim to it's charm. It was covered with berries and they were picking them and inspecting them/throwing them....who knows what kids do. I'm just thankful that they didn't try to taste them.
That week , we had to take her to the family doc to get on top of things before they escalated to the crazed, sleep deprived, poison ivy trip that I was forced in to. It occurred to me that she may have gotten into the same plant and, sure enough, I took her to it and she agreed that that was the culprit. It became very obvious to me that education is foremost in the protection of our children,our family,our fellow man.
On that note(sorry to go on and on and so forth), I helped a friend with his real estate inspections late this Summer and checked the house of a single mother with four children. She had a nice, big, open yard in which they could romp.The perimeter of the yard ,however, was lined with pine trees that were covered with....for lack of better words....majestic..... poison ivy vines. They were beautiful,complete with the pretty berries that children find so endearing. I felt my heart fall into my sneakers. How could I tell this nice lady,who struggles on her fixed income, works like idk what to support these kids,all the while she's working on her degree to improve their way-of life, that there is a monster enveloping their retreat. It was a difficult task indeed but one that I had to endure. Her reaction was as one might expect. I felt like a heel ,knowing that those kids would be couped up until the stuff was removed, but like a hero knowing that they would not need to experience the full on anger of an overly empowered portion of nature.
Phew...again, I apologize for going on but this is a sensitive area for me. Just be glad that I didn't get started on the Asian Tiger Mosquito which chews on me as I write ,despite the 'global freezing' in our region.

lorax

Wow, that sucks. I've had bad reactions to poison sumac before, but never anything so severe as you are describing. My worst reaction was with the sap of Euphorbia tirucalli, the innocuous-looking pencil tree. I didn't know anything about it when I pruned these bushes off of my walkway.

I went to hospital with raised blisters the size of baseballs on my arms; they swelled up over the matter of about an hour and a half. It burned me so badly that I still have a couple of places on my arms that won't tan. The hospital immediately immersed my arms in chilled alcohol to counteract the enzymes in the sap. I count myself among the extremely lucky that none got in my eyes; the doctor said that had that happened, it would have permanently blinded me. He also said that if I ever got sap on me again, the reaction would be ten times worse.

Now I wear thick denim and elbow-length rubber gloves to handle any Euphorbs. And I don't prune the pencil trees.


And on a lighter note - Alocasia / other Aroid sap may be caustic, but it's the best cure out there for ant bites, and the only remedy to reduce the pain of being bitten by a Bullet Ant. You think skeeters are bad?!? I have been bitten twice to date by these little buggers, and that's 24 hours minimum of excruciating pain, cold sweats, and the shakes. I am now extremely careful about where I put my hands in the forest.

Tog Tan

Hi Lorax, I suspect it's the way different people have allergy to the different enzymes of these plants' sap. I am totally immune to Euphorbia tirucalli and I use to have them around. I have a collection of a number of other euphorbia spp and so far so good. Sap can get on me anytime. Doesn't do a thing to me. You know, this is like snake bite, only people who are highly allergic to the certain toxins (which is a powerful enzyme) will die. Others will just have to wait for the suffering to go away.
This said, I think it is only a matter of luck (bad luck) when we meet our match. For me it was the Alocasia lowii.

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Tog Tan has sadly suddenly passed away 6/16/09. We will miss you Tog Tan.

lorax

Yup, we all have our plant kryptonites!

On the other hand, I seem to be immune to Coral Snake venom. I've been bitten three times so far, and have yet to have more than a superficial reaction. I live in fear of the day I get bitten by a Fer-de-Lance, though.

Tog Tan

Oi Lorax, you serious about the Coral snake? Were they dry bites or bites which drew blood? I am impressed.
For the record, I have been bitten by over 20 species(not 20 times) of snakes and I lost count of the number of times. Somehow along the line I managed to develop a tolerance of the various toxins and I hardly have any ill effects after a day.
By the way, a Blessed and Merry Christmas!

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Tog Tan has sadly suddenly passed away 6/16/09. We will miss you Tog Tan.

lorax

One dry bite and two that drew blood. I think I probably saved myself by making for the nearest stream, cutting the bite open, and letting the water draw the toxin.

paradisi

I was bitten by a python - either green tree snake or a carpet snake a month ago - no poison in either and I didn't see it so I don't know whicjh it was - just a pair of holes in my foot and now lots of dead skin

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The universe is my eyes and ears. All else is hearsay.

Kenzie_POM

Hey Lagniappe,

I got hit in the bend of the knee as well. Then the insidious poison spread to the other bend. I saw the doppler of my lymph nodes. They were huge. The tech did not even have to mark them with a region of interest on the machine. It was obvious. The glands filled the screen. All these toxins are scary things. PAINFUL scary things.
I am glad you and your family are well. I would consider napalm but burning that stuff puts the poison in the air. Not to mention my neighbors would approve.
Also, consider yourself a hero for that home inspection. What you don't know can seriously harm you. I do whole-heartedly agree with the education point. I have a five year old. We use the internet to ID p oak, sumac, and ivy. I try to make it fun so she will remember.

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Cheers then~

Happy Growing

Kenzie