Those lovely mangos pictured in Monday's post were picked last week by Brent. I didn't know at the time whether he touched the tree or not. Who cares! Mangos are delicious, and that is obviously all we know about them.
Well, on Tuesday Brent was breaking out in a rash and his entire body was itching. He had eaten shrimp on Sunday, and another one of our friends who ate the same shrimp experienced similar symptoms, so we figured it was that. He endured a brutal three days of swelling and mad scratching.
Just as he was starting to heal up on this afternoon, I happened upon a Facebook post expressing a joy as great as my own about mangos. A commenter advised to be careful, because she had been twice to the emergency room after picking mangos -- apparently, the sap in the stems is quite poisonous.
I read this aloud to Brent because I thought it was interesting, though I didn't realize the full significance until he stood up and said, "So THAT's what this is!"
He had picked those mangos off the tree and held them to his chest on his way home. Then he rubbed his neck and eye and tugged his pants up -- details too mundane to remember unless you have giant red rashes to remind you.
I have long loved the mango, but we had no idea that the rest of the tree held any danger.
Sure enough, here's what Wikipedia has to say about it:
Contact with oils in mango leaves, stems, sap, and skin can cause dermatitis and/or anaphylaxis in susceptible individuals.[42] Those with a history of poison ivy or poison oak contact dermatitis may be most at risk for mango contact dermatitis.[43] Cross-reactions between mango allergens and urushiol, a chemical in poison ivy and poison sumac that can cause dermatitis, have been observed.[44] Urushiol is also present in mango leaves and stems.
So, Brent is totally off mangos. I still have every intention of eating as many as I can get my hands on, but I'm going to keep my hands off anything but the actual fruit.
No comments:
Post a Comment