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PSA: You can have a contact allergy to ragweed


Katy
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Kiddos found "lilly of the valley" about to bloom in the gravel behind the shed.  Suspicious, given the time of year and the fact that we're in Oklahoma, I went back there to find a giant patch of ragweed about to open, and pulled it all.   Now my hands have an itchy rash.

 

 

I don't know how it's possible to NOT be allergic to poison ivy but to have a contact allergy to ragweed, but apparently I do.

 

If you decide to go weed your garden today, be sure to wear gloves if you get fall hay fever.

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You may have solved a mystery for me. I was outside the other day and when I came in my hands itched like crazy. I now remember pulling a plant out of the garden, not knowing what it was. Looking at a picture of ragweed, now I know. I didn't get a rash, but my hand itched and burned for a while.

 

Same here. It was last year and I had weeded an overgrown flowerbed. I got a rash on my hands and arms that looked like poison ivy, but there was NO poison ivy in the patch. I just looked up images of ragweed too and it was there... it is everywhere! From now on I'll be much more careful with ragweed, which is to say I'll wear gloves when pulling it!

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Ugh!  Part of me is thankful to be living in the woods where I almost never bother to pull anything!

 

This post did remind me of my only (well, second, if Popeye bath cream 30-something years ago counts) contact reaction, and I just looked it up to discover that hyacinth bulbs ARE toxic.  That was a miserable day!  What's weird (and relevant to this post) is that I had dh finish planting them with no reaction, yet he's *highly* sensitive to poison ivy!

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