Fortunately I had some tinted sunscreen that presumably would prevent some of the burning while it covered the rash and blisters - until they kept spreading out from underneath it. To make things worse, I woke up and found all of this on the morning I had to give the final presentation for the business course I've been taking all summer. (Note a few days later: I took antihistamines but they had no effect, so I have to assume that this is just the reaction to the oil without being exposed to light.) In addition, it seems I'm having just a plain old allergic reaction to the stuff as well, because my stomach hasn't been exposed to sunlight but the reaction has developed into big red blotches of itchy rash there. And apparently in my case, I don't even need sunlight. There were patches on my left arm where I crossed my arms and touched my wrist to my arms and over the course of the day the rash has spread over my whole arm.Īnd all of the areas exposed to light are BLISTERING - because this stuff produces phyto-photo-dermatitis - it causes you to get a sunburn when it is exposed to sunlight.
(I had tucked my hand under my head while I was laying on the couch watching TV.) Over the course of the day the rash spread up my right jaw, and I now look like I have half of a red beard. I woke up with my right eye partially swollen shut, my right ear is swollen to the point I can't wear an earring, and my neck looks like I have a giant red hickey. My forehead erupted in an itchy rash last night. It seems that when I put the Neosporin on the wound, it absorbed the oil from the wild parsnip and spread it everywhere I touched with my wrist. That's when the real trouble began.Įleven days after that little drop of sap landed on my wrist, instead of healing, the reaction to that wild parsnip has spread. It looked like an allergic reaction to the Neosporin or the Band-Aid, so I took off the Band-Aid and let it air dry. The next morning, the wound was red and swollen for about an inch around where the scab had been. I put some Neosporin and a Band-Aid on it. But this is horrible stuff.Ī day or two later there was a scab on the spot, but I pulled it off, thinking that whatever the stuff was that was still stuck to the spot would finally come off with it. Take a look at the picture: it's a beautiful yellow flower that's shaped like Queen Anne's Lace or Anise.
I noticed a couple of small red spots next to it that looked like tiny blisters but figured they would heal too.Ī couple of days later in Vermont I asked some of my quilting students what they thought it might be. A day or two later it seemed to be healing. I cleaned it some more, tried to scrape it off, put some alcohol on it. The next day, I noticed that instead of going away, it was actually burning down into my skin. I figured it would just wear off, like pine sap, and I ignored it. I tried to wash it off, but it was stuck on. I knew what I was picking - goldernrod, purple loosestsrife and Queen Anne's lace.īut when I got back to my hotel I noticed a small black line of sap on my wrist, about the size of a fingernail cutting.
Last week while I was teaching in New Hampshire I walked to dinner one night and along the way I picked some wildflowers along the side of the road. Today's blog post isn't about quilting, it's a warning about wild parsnip.
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