Totally fine now, even 2.5days later it was all out of me and AOK, but really was worried for a while. Glad it was me not the Mrs just due to body weight. (She is half mine and I would not have wanted double those effects unexpectedly!)
How about if I start a thread in the "Seeds and germination" section and call it "Safe Handling of seeds".
Copy and paste the text below here to there.
If anyone wants to move or pass this info to another forum or whatever, feel free.
I know we don't have many Aussie members yet, but figured I would put it here just in case for future reference or if someone searches for info, or is going to harvest a heap themselves.
I SUGGEST YOU WEAR GLOVES WHEN HANDLING LARGE AMOUNTS OF Bat's Wing Coral Tree ~ Erythrina Vespertilio SEED AND PODS.
Just a heaps up about picking/harvesting/sorting Bat's Wing Coral Tree ~ Erythrina Vespertilio Seeds.
Whilst sorting large amounts of seed the other day I accidentally temporarily "poisoned" myself.
I had gum from the pods, and fine powdery insect shit from inside the pods all over my table and covering my hands arms, and was breathing in quite a bit of dust.
I was sorting several 20liter buckets of pods and had just about finished. I had kinda distractedly noticed I could not focus on or understand the movie I was trying to watch anymore, kinda foggy, irritated and, yeah, distracted. I had just rubbed my eyes.
Mrs was talking to me from the other room, but I wasn't listening, which was unusual as the conversation was really interesting till a couple minutes ago when the words became noise. It was all a steady sound now, not clear words.
Anyway, I now think it was the clear gum from the bug chewed green pods getting in my eyes that caused the major effects, but am not really sure?
After rubbing my eyes and face again, to remove some dust(which was a REALLY dumb and a REALLY unusual thing to do, as my hands were really sticky like I had syrup on them, which then made my whole face sticky and kinda glued an eye shut
) and then trying to stand up and walk, I had immediate powerful visual distortion(stop motion kinda thing). Freaked a little and sat back down for a while. No idea how long.
Slowly crept to the shower, and thoroughly washed while bracing myself against the floor of the shower. I guess that took a while....
The distortion only happened when I moved, but it was strong and increasing and it was followed by mild thumping/thud thud thud sort of headache mild dizziness, and steeply intensifying sleepiness over the next hour, and when the Mrs spoke she said I was just mumbling nonsense, and "looking really stoned, twitchy and freaked out". Once asleep I had some really intense, stressful dreams and the Mrs woke me up several times as I was yelling and thrashing around.
Exhausted and foggy the next day, and a little the day after.
It was not pleasant or enlightening, and because it was totally unwanted and unexpected, I found the whole experience really quite disturbing.
Maybe it was an aneurism or a stroke, or a weird panic attack, or I got sting or bit by a critter in the buckets(spider, catterpilla, beetle?) or even more likely it was just run of the mill psychosis and "flash backs", but I personally believe it was directly related to the gum getting in my eyes, and for that reason I recommend gloves and handling them a little more carefully than I did.
I am glad I did not have to drive home after work and instead could just slowly creep my way to bed...
After a really quick google, I can't find any other folks who have had similar experiences from just handling the material, so I figured a warning might be a good idea.
Could be a real problem if you had your kids or your granny helping you sort the seeds.
I really believe it was the sticky gum from the semi-ripe pods that the caterpillars had chewed getting in my eyes that cause the effects, but yeah, I could just be a nutter.
Who's to say?
Handle with care just in case.
Author
Topic: Safe Handling of Seeds (Read 8063 times)
