New medical concern for me being in the woods

[FunkyPertwee]

vomiting material that looks like coffee grounds;

That sounds horrible.

[old Grump]

Side Effects of Prednisone:

Difficulty sleeping; increased sweating; rash; itching; swelling of the mouth, face, lips, or tongue; fever; general body discomfort; increased pressure in the eye; joint or muscle pain; muscle weakness; puffing of the face;weakness.

Not to worry about changes in menstrual periods, I am to old wise ass.
The rest I had before seeing the doctor and getting the Prednisone. Swelling in face is down but rash is still there but not itching as bad. Eyes are still swollen a little but I can see pretty well now.

You know, if you didn't want to shoot the last month because my scores scared you, you could have found an easier way out of it!

Actually, I am glad you are doing better. Not very exciting to have such an extreme change in a short period of time.

Dream on, both eyes are open now, as soon as the itching clears up and I can focus both eyes on my front sight I will shoot my targets. I might not beat you but I bet I will worry you. Pistol could be a problem the way my hands are shaking but good or bad I will shoot it.

That sounds horrible.

Actually if you drank my coffee the way I like to make it that would be normal vomit.

[L1A1Rocker]

Damn. I'm glad you pulled through this. Could have been much worse had your throat started to close up. Very strange how our bodies change as we get older. Taste buds are just one thing that change. VERY good advice to keep benadryl on hand ALL the time.

[arcangel]

Happy to hear you pulled through, and hope you feel better in the days to come. Will be praying for you anyways.

[old Grump]

Well except for wobbly legs and shaky everywhere else it looks like I came through this okay but yesterday evening and this morning my nephew finally broke out. His arms are broke out in a rash but controlled by the Benadryl cream. Doctor thinks because he was still taking antibiotics for Lyme disease and the fact that he is 50 years younger than me he had a better resistance so the delayed reaction.

During my research I think I may have found the culprit, plain common old hogweed. It's only a guess but it fits all the symptoms and it is native here.

Tomorrow I go out and buy both of us light long sleeved work shirts before we touch anything in the yard again. I have to much to do before winter to not do something with it and its easier now than with 20" of snow on top of it.

Mirror says I am pretty again and my eyes are back to normal. Now I just hope I can get over the Prednisone shakes so I can shoot my August targets. Man what a month it's been.

[slamfire51]

I've never seen any that I can recall.
It seems to be a badass weed to come in contact with.
Glad you're recovering OG.

http://www.dec.ny.gov/animals/39809.html

http://www.dec.ny.gov/animals/72556.html

[old Grump]

Fortunately Giant Hogweed isn't the culprit or both of us would have ended up taking an ambulance ride and we wouldn't have gone home right away either.

Between you, me and a few others on this forum we could keep a clinic pretty busy this summer. You gotta be tough to get old. It always sounded funny when Grandma used to say it but now I know what she meant.

[slamfire51]

I just looked up common hog weed. Seems to be a completely different plant as far as side effects go.
OG, is the plant you came in contact with an actual hog weed, or a plant that was nicknamed local to your region?

The common hog weed is edible.
http://www.celtnet.org.uk/recipes/an...mmon%20Hogweed

[O.S.O.K.]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hogweed

I think he came into contact with "water hemlock" looks very similar to hog weed.

Look at all of the varieties!

And I've never heard of this before - especially in terms of being anything dangerous.

OG, what were you doing? Rolling around in it and sticking it up your nose?

Hard to believe that just cutting brush would get you like that. Wow.

A lesson to me as I go to work on my new place....

[old Grump]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hogweed

I think he came into contact with "water hemlock" looks very similar to hog weed.

Look at all of the varieties!

And I've never heard of this before - especially in terms of being anything dangerous.

OG, what were you doing? Rolling around in it and sticking it up your nose?

Hard to believe that just cutting brush would get you like that. Wow.

A lesson to me as I go to work on my new place....

There are over 60 varieties and I am on dry oak prairie land so Water Hemlock is out. Seriously I didn't do anything different than I have a hundred times before but this time it bit me in the, well actually that was the only place on me that didn't itch or swell up but it sure got my arms, legs and face, basically anything that was bare skin. It's also related to cow parsnip which we have in our pastures not so much in the woods where I was mostly working. Same family so I lumped them all together but again it's only a best guess. I have been lax due to familiarity with what I have growing in my planted prairie grasses and not paying attention. I am surrounded on two sides by woods and two sides by pasture and hay fields so I could have gotten some volunteers in. I had some wild mustard about 10 years ago and a mess of nettles that I worked for 3 years to rid my land of it. Then I got lazy and stopped looking because I stopped running into things that did bad things to me. Can't stop going outside, that is why I live in the hut in the woods but I have to pay more attention. Kind of like watching for traffic in the city.

[Solidus-snake]

You gotta be tough to get old. It always sounded funny when Grandma used to say it but now I know what she meant.

As to this, my grandpa I mentioned earlier has 1 brother left alive and that old fart will live to see 100 im betting. Not because hes tough, I think its his love of money that keeps him going. Fit as a fiddle but id be damned if he does a lick of hard work. Man has hundreds of thousands of dollars though from being a tight wad his whole life and if he getshis way will have it buried with him.

[slamfire51]

As to this, my grandpa I mentioned earlier has 1 brother left alive and that old fart will live to see 100 im betting. Not because hes tough, I think its his love of money that keeps him going. Fit as a fiddle but id be damned if he does a lick of hard work. Man has hundreds of thousands of dollars though from being a tight wad his whole life and if he getshis way will have it buried with him.

LOL, my dad said he was to be buried in his Lexus. We told him some red neck would dig him up and toss him out of the Lexus and take the car. Needless to say the car stayed above ground.

[alismith]

4 days ago I was moving some old logs for making a fire, they were supposed to be firewood but they ended up dry rotting to almost nothing so they got added to my bonfire pile. Then we moved some rocks and concrete chunks to what will eventually be my rock garden and finally cut some brush alongside my fence. Nothing I haven't done a hundred times before but somewhere along the way something evil got to me. My nephew was working with me and actually handled more of the building blocks and rocks than I did, we were about even on the wood and brush cutting and he suffered no ill effects.

I suffered from a burning itching feeling that night around my llips and eyes and the next day my left eye was swollen shut and I developed a rash on my neck, upper chest, shoulders and arms. If I would have had claws instead of fingernails I would have ripped my skin off because the rash quickly moved from the top of my head to my feet and my face looked like a caricature of the Pillsbury dough boy.

By the time I got to an appointment to see the doctor I was completely blind and was why I wasn't on the site. In the exam room I took off my sunglasses and the nurse said 'Oh My'. When the doctor came in 10 minutes later he took one look, said 'Oh My' and immediately wrote out a prescription for Prednisone.

My jaw drops because that is contraindicated for diabetics and the doc acknowledged that but he said he was balancing that with the fact that he had to get my eyes open first. I am on a 2 week regimen with reducing doses every 3 or 4 days and in the mean time going on a scale I have had to triple my insulin and my readings are double normal for me. Today my eyes are open, I am taking Benadryl for the rash and the Prednisone for the swelling and still no clue as to what I contacted. Maybe mold from the old wood I was handliing, I have just gotten over a mold infection from some old hay and maybe I have been sensitized. A bug bite from something living under the rocks or one of the vines or saplings I was cutting.

I have been exposed to Poison Ivy, Oak and Sumac around the country ever since I was knee high to a short grasshopper and never reacted. I am sensitive to wasps but it was always local swelling and a few hours of headache and soreness. I am super sensitive to nettles but there were none in the area we were working in and I would have known immediately, it's like getting hit with a blow torch at the point of contact and instant rash not a delayed reaction.

Lesson learned, my sister carries Benadryl with her because of bee sensitivity and now it looks like that is going to have to be a pocket item for me too. If I had taken it as soon as I felt the burning and itching it may have stopped the process or at least ameliorated it.

If you have never taken Prednisone before I don't recommend it as a steady diet. I was up and down awake and sleeping in 2 hour shifts for a day and now I am feeling fatigued and dizzy but mostly from my whacked glucose readings. Best guess by my doctor and me is contact dermatitis with no other clue to go on. My feet look like they have the measles and my neck and arms looks like they were tied to a fire ant hill for a couple of hours. I'm to old to start finding new things to get allergic to so it looks like I ditch my shorts for long pants and sleeves from now on and a tin of little red and white capsules in my pocket if I go anywhere near the woods.

I still think I am living in a little piece of heaven but I have again been reminded it suffers no fools and will bite you in the tush if you are not paying attention. Another item to add to my over the fence gear. God apparently takes care of the young and dumb because I used to head out into the deep forest or climb mountains or spend a day and a night in the desert with only a knife, water, matches and cigars and never a lick of a problem. What a difference an extra 40 years makes. All you dinosaurs and middle aged going into dinosaur status take heed. You just don't know what is going to get you. I still don't know what did.

I was on Prednisone for about 2 years to control periformis syndrome (condition where the muscle in my butt cheek pinches the siatic nerve in my leg) and it worked great until near the end when it started swelling my feet and ankles, so I had to go off it. While it was working, it was like a "gift from God." When it turned on me, it was like the "finger of Satan" singling me out for punishment. Good stuff for reducing swelling but, like you said, you have to be very careful with it.

As far as poison ivy goes, it could still be that. Everyone is born immune to poison ivy, but the more you get in it, the more you wear down that immunity, until you no longer have it. Then, the more you get in it, the more succeptible to it you become. All I have to do is look at it, and I catch it now.

"Contact dermititis" is the generic medical term doctors use for poison ivy and simlar plants.

Glad to hear you're over it now. No matter what you had, be very careful so you don't get it again. Good luck.