Does Touching Tomato Plants Make You Itchy?

[JumpyTheFrog]

Does anyone else get itchy after working in the garden with their tomato plants? I often have to wash my arms up to my elbows because they start to itch a bit. Washing fixes the problem immediately. As far as I can tell, eating tomatoes doesn't bother me.

[Southern Ivy]

My hands also itch when I cut tomatoes. 

[prairiewindmomma]

Yes, I can only work with tomato plants when wearing long sleeves and gloves. My contact dermatitis reaction to tomatoes (& nickel and other things) is not correlated with a food allergy reaction to consumption of tomato products. 

 

I also react to zucchini plants. People who react to tomatoes often will also react to mums, daisies, and other things.

[myfunnybunch]

Yes! I get a little bit of a prickly rash and itchy arms. I also have to wash my arms after I garden.

 

Also, squash/pumpkin and pole beans. Raspberry and strawberry leaves give me hives.

 

I am fine with the fruits of all of the plants. It's just the leaves that make me break out.

[Happy]

Always have gotten mildly itchy when working with tomato plants. Long sleeves or a quick wash fixes it. Tomatoes are worth the effort.

 

Okra plants drive me insane...so much so that my husband does all the picking off the okra plants.

[RKWAcademy]

Yes, and so do zucchini plants.  I've never noticed anything when eating or cutting the fruit.  But the plants really make my arms itch.

[dirty ethel rackham]

Yep.  I get itchy.  It i just the plants that bother me.  I can touch, smell, eat tomatoes without a problem.  I just have to wash every time I harvest my tomatoes (or do anything in my pathetic garden. 

[trulycrabby]

I got itchy just reading the thread title. :o

[strange_girl]

Sometimes with just tomatoes, but always with zucchini and cucumber plants.

[cjzimmer1]

Mine isn't mild, it's pretty severe, and it's magnified when the leaves are damp or wet.  As a kid I used to have to pick tomatoes in my parent's garden (we sold them commercially so there were hundreds of plants), I would come out with my legs and feet bloody from scratching so much.  Fortunately I didn't have that job very long.  I can't cut tomatoes either because the juice makes me itch too.  Washing helps but doesn't eliminate the itch.  I also react to cutting the other nightshade veggies although not as severely.  But I can eat all of them without any problems.

[KrissiK]

I put sometimes mildly itchy, but mostly it just makes me smell like a tomato plant.

[El...]

Yes.  But even more so do cucs and pumpkins!  Those seem to have actual thorns.