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I discovered, the hard way, that my allergy to poison ivy also means I have a mild allergy to cashews. I dearly love cashews, to the point where I can eat large containers of them. Unfortunately when I do I get a severe rash on my hands and feet due to the residual urushiol content in the cashews.
Today I limit myself to only a handful of these delicious nuts at a time, over a period of weeks.
Thanks for this article. That is very interesting about the cashew/poison ivy relationship. I love cashews and have never had any trouble with eating them. However, I do currently have a bad case of contact dermatitis so it could be that I need to be careful about eating too many cashews in the future since I am allergic to the ingredient that cashews have in common with certain plants. At any rate, the only thing I have in my flower beds that might cause contact dermatitis is a type of mint. The morning of the day that I came down with the rash I had been cutting back a prolific mint that a DGer had given me in the spring. I looked it up on Plant Files in DG and found that mint can cause a skin rash. Then I read your article and went to the DermNet NZ web site. There was a photo there of the type of mint that I have. The mystery is solved as to the culprit that caused my rash but the itching hasn't stopped! I have been to the doctor twice in the past two weeks, have taken a 10-day round of prednisone and I am now using an ointment which he prescribed. This is miserable stuff! All you folks who don't have this type of allergy consider yourselves fortunate and be careful around mint! My DH will have to rid my flower beds of the nasty stuff. Too bad, because I like the way it looks and smells.
Thanks again for the article and the links to the other information.
I'm allergic to poison ivy but have never had a problem with eating cashews or mangoes which are also in that family and have some urushiol in the skin (although I always peel my mangoes before I eat them).
I bought a large container of cashews to snap the pic w/ the cashews in the blue bowls. Hubby and I have eaten quite a few of them. They are so delicious; it is a shame that anyone is allergic to them.
marsue,
Wow; what a story and a sadness. Good thing you decided what was causing your problems. I had horrible contact dermatitis on my hands about 10 years ago; the drs tried everything including steroids (yuck!). I've found that wet aspirin rubbed into my hands works better than those steriods every did. Has something to do with the acid in aspirin and with it calming my nerves so I don't itch the skin off. Dr decided maybe I was allergic to the NCR (carbonless chemical carbon) paper that I handled constantly at work. Maybe some gardener in the area would like to come to your house and dig it all up for you so it can have a new home. You are so welcome. Thanks for reading and commenting!
ecrane3,
So true about Mangos. I had no idea once and ended up with quite a rash. Thanks for reading and for your comment.
Aunt A: Yesterday afternoon, my DH rid my flower beds of every single bit of mint that was in there! He is not allergic to poison ivy and other plants as I am but to be cautious, he put his hand down inside a plastic bag and pulled up the plants and immediately put them inside a trash bag and bagged it up for the garbage man. Although I do love the way the mint looks and smells, I didn't want to take a chance on giving it to anyone else who might not know that they have an allergy to it. So all my mint has gone bye-bye. Of course, I will be on the look-out for any that might spring back up from roots and/or runners that DH might have overlooked. Mint can be very aggressive so it is probably just as well that it has been eliminated from my flower bed. Afterwards, as another precaution, DH washed his hands and arms really good and changed his clothes.
You are correct. Mint can just take over. It is a good thing he washed up really well for your sake also.
My DH is totally allergic to poison ivy; seems like he can look at it and break out. I wanted to plant some mint but I might wait and see if my DH is allergic to mom's plants before transplanting any. Wow.
