farm yard manure burning skin

karl tyrrell

Hi i have axcess to any amounts of well rotted farm yard manure you put your hands true it and its the same as compost great stuff anything i planted thrived veg especially ,but the skin on my hands went red raw and a bad rash, i handle a lot of plants and transplanted a borage plant from one place to another,i thought it was the problem not sure still think its the manure?

Corsendonk

karl tyrrell wrote: »

Hi i have axcess to any amounts of well rotted farm yard manure you put your hands true it and its the same as compost great stuff anything i planted thrived veg especially ,but the skin on my hands went red raw and a bad rash, i handle a lot of plants and transplanted a borage plant from one place to another,i thought it was the problem not sure still think its the manure?

You weren't working with celery or parsnips as well were you?

karl tyrrell

no onions spuds lettuce tomatoes cabbage carrots strawberrys bedding plants

Corsendonk

karl tyrrell wrote: »

no onions spuds lettuce tomatoes cabbage carrots strawberrys bedding plants

Strange, may be the carrots. I have suffered from the celery burn myself and seen some really bad parsnip burn rashes. Info on the rash charactristics are below.

http://northernwoodlands.org

To the untrained eye, many members of the carrot family look alike. Poison hemlock and spotted water hemlock can be confused with Queen Anne’s lace; wild parsnip can be confused with cow parsnip, which can be confused with giant hogweed, which can be confused with great angelica. Of all the plants just mentioned, though, only wild parsnip and giant hogweed contain sap that will significantly irritate your skin. (The hemlocks are very poisonous, but only if eaten).

The rash is characterized by burnlike blisters that often form in splatter formations, or streaks; these patterns relate directly to sap dispersal as the plant is dragged across your skin.

The toxin in parsnip sap is different from the toxin found in poison ivy or poison sumac; the reaction your body has to it has nothing to do with your immune system, and everyone is susceptible. The harmful chemical compounds – specifically, psoralen and its derivatives – are photosensitizing, which means they’re activated by ultraviolet radiation from the sun. (Smear yourself with parsnip sap in a dark closet, and nothing will happen.)

When you get some sap on your skin, the sap absorbs solar energy, then releases it in the form of heat. On a micro level, the psoralen molecule lodges between two strands of DNA, and sunlight fuses the strands together. “You can imagine what this does to an insect that tries to eat the plant,” says Vogelmann.


Parsnip stems are deeply grooved, which
distinguishes them from other members
of the carrot family.
The chemical reaction damages skin cells and feels very much like a burn. This is a key difference between the phototoxic dermatitis caused by poison parsnip and the allergic contact dermatitis you get from poison ivy. Parsnip burns feel like burns, whereas poison ivy rashes are often more itchy and irritating than painful.

While the pain from a parsnip burn is relatively short-lived, an encounter can leave long-lasting scars. As part of the recovery process, the body produces dark pigmentation that is thought to serve as a protective mechanism against further UV injury (sort of a super-suntan). These dark splotches can linger on the body for years. In an interesting twist, people with psoriasis and similar skin-pigment disorders sometimes turn the toxin to their advantage and use psoralens to help increase their skin’s sensitivity to ultraviolet light.

karl tyrrell

thanks thats information i did not know but i was not near parsnips or carrots i still say it was the manure?

dfbemt

Sorry to hear about your rash from the farmyard manure but that's just tough sh1t

Yours in fun......

bmaxi

I suffer from eczema and if I handle any type of compost or manure with bare hands I get a painful rash. I presume most of these would contain phosphoric acid and wonder if this could be the reason.

karl tyrrell

i have eczema myself never got it on my hands

bmaxi

karl tyrrell wrote: »

i have eczema myself never got it on my hands

I think you just might have. I'm very sensitive to any changes in soaps or anything like that, even certain clothes. You don't have to have extreme eczema, just a certain skin type. Wear gloves in the garden is my advice.