Allergic reactions/alstros
Jim McKenney (Fri, 23 Jan 2004 13:30:06 PST)
Roy Sachs wrote:
I'm no longer as sensitive to poison oak
as I was before working with alstros (although I don't test my
immunity to poison oak too often).
Thanks for the tip, Roy. Maybe if I'm more attentive to the cultivation of
my Alstroemeria, it will have the added benefit of imparting some resistace
to the local and very nasty poison ivy. : )
That's a win/win!
Jim McKenney
jimmckenney@starpower.net
Montgomery County, Maryland zone 7 where the hellebores and alstros are not
itchy, but the poison ivy more than makes up for it
At 01:22 PM 1/23/2004 -0800, you wrote:
Most postings on this topic seem to assume that the putative allergens are
coming from the Alstroemeria. I know absolutely nothing about the
commercial production of Alstroemeria for cut flowers. But as valuable as
that crop is, I'll bet they are sprayed with something somewhere along the
line. Maybe that something (or those somethings) is the source of the
allergens.
Jim McKenney
jimmckenney@starpower.net
Montgomery County, Maryland zone 7 where the one Alstroemeria long
established in the garden has never bitten me
Jim: I've been to producers of alstroemeria and to florists who buy
them from me...no treatments at all (other than putting them in vase
life solutions. Not all the handlers wore latex gloves...most did not.
So I think there is something inherently toxic in the alstros (it's
in the literature, too); immunity to that something varies from nil
(or acquired) to complete among those who work with them all
year-round.
Jane McGary's resistance to the toxin in some of the sumacs is
perhaps a good indicator to whether one is going to be sensitive to
the compound(s) in alstros. I'm no longer as sensitive to poison oak
as I was before working with alstros (although I don't test my
immunity to poison oak too often).
Roy
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