Welts on forearms - coral burn

Hi all,

although i dont really consider myself a NEWBIE i am posting this in this forum as i have never experianced this reaction in my tank before.

A week ago whilst cleaning my glass on my RSM 250 i felt nothing sting me. 24hours later i developed a few flea like bites on my lower forearm. Yes i am in my tank everyday at the moment - New blue clam likes to jump!

These bites became very itchy and spread - still on the right forearm.

Within the week i had them on my left forearm! Yes i started to use the other hand to avoid the salty water.

My LFS tells me it is coral burn - very possible as i have been moving my hammer and many other corals around.

Its weaping welts and really sore - any ideas for treatment as its gets worse every time i put my arms in. Can send photo's if requested.

 

get long aqua gloves...you can get them in the LFS...they are ackward but much better then getting those stings
You said they are weepy, you need to go to the doctor and have them looked at to make sure they are not infected. There are things you can get in the tank including a form of tuberculosis and all sort of staph! Do you have any fever/chills
I know of someone who is allergic to any type of hammer corals or things in that family. Just putting his hands in the tank with a hammer causes big welps! You really need to protect yourself from the tank by getting the gloves

 

yea be careful i read an article about a guy who smushed a nudi on his glass like a bug put him in the icu for a week. found it on masna letter

Toxic Nudibranchs
By Brian Robak
Cheverly, Maryland

First I'd like to say that I'm okay. Second, I hope
that by reading this story, some of you might avoid
a similar experience.
I have a nano-reef tank that I've recently set up at
work. It’s an 18-gallon softy tank where I planned
to showcase zoanthids. I purchased about ten zoanthid
colonies from the Logical Reef, and set up
the little tank for them. About two weeks ago, I
noticed small nudibranchs on some of the zoanthids.
I posted a message at the Reef Central bulletin
board in the hopes of getting a positive ID on the
nudibranch. I didn’t want anything eating my new
zoanthid colonies, but I wanted to make sure that
removing them from the tank was the right course
of action. The ID did come back as a “probable zoanthid
eater”, so I began to remove them. I'd been
picking them out of the tank for almost a week
without any thought or worry. Today however, was a
different story.
I saw one of the little nudis on the front glass, and
I thought that instead of pulling it out, I'd just
squish it against the glass. So I reached in and with
my index finger, I pressed the nudibranch into the
glass. The slug was about the size of a small zoanthid
polyp, or roughly the size of a pencil eraser. A
little of the goo that was inside the nudibranch
ended up on my index finger when I squished it, so
I rubbed by finger against my thumb in the water,
pulled my hand out of the tank and wiped it off with
a towel.
It only took about five seconds for me to realize
something was wrong. I got a hot flash. I didn't
think much of it at the time and I sat down and
turned on my computer. About twenty seconds
later, I had another flash, and I noticed that my
heart rate was starting to increase. That’s when I
knew something was seriously wrong. I waited another
thirty seconds before I turned around and
told a coworker of mine to dial 911. He gave me a
questioning look. I told him that I was serious, so he said “Alright”, and turned around and dialed. I
started to feel dizzy, and my heart was really starting
to race. This was maybe ninety seconds after I
squished the little nudibranch.
My coworker hung up the phone and said that help was
on the way. I explained to him what had happened in
case I lost consciousness before the EMTs got to me.
He knows a bit about my hobby, so he understood what
I was telling him. I then propped my feet up and tried
to slow my breathing. It was getting harder and
harder to breathe, and I could feel my heart rate increasing.
The EMTs arrived in about four minutes. My office in
Washington DC is two blocks from the White House,
and five blocks from George Washington Hospital, so
thankfully it didn’t take long for the EMTs to get to
me. They came and lifted me out of my office chair,
put me in a transport chair, strapped me in and gave
me oxygen. They carried me out of my office, with
everyone looking on, of course, into the elevator and
down into the ambulance. The EMT asked me to describe
what was happening, so I told her I was having
trouble breathing, my heart was racing and I was
dizzy. She took my blood pressure. It read 150/80 and
my heart rate was 115bpm. She changed me to a reclining
position, turned up the oxygen, and we headed
for the hospital emergency room.
It only took another three or four minutes to get to
the hospital. There was some traffic at the emergency
room entrance, so the EMT asked me if I could
walk to a wheel chair. I said I'd try, but as soon as I
stood up, I collapsed. They had to put me back on the stretcher, and took an extra thirty seconds to back
the ambulance in to the dock. After being removed
from the ambulance I was wheeled directly to the
critical care unit. The hospital staff hooked me up to
a blood pressure machine. Ten minutes had elapsed
since my exposure to the nudibranch and my blood
pressure was 169/70 and my heart rate was 154bpm.
They transferred me to another room, and put me
back on oxygen. Three doctors arrived and started
asking me questions. My fingers on both hands had
started tingling, similar to the feeling when your hand
“falls asleep” and you just start to get blood back
into it, only twice as many pins and needles. I explained
the feeling to the doctors, and described how
the tingling was moving from my fingers up my arms.
The sensation made it to my elbow before it started
to lessen.
Fifteen to twenty minutes after exposure I began
experiencing a low burning sensation in my thighs. The
burning sensation moved down the inside of my legs
and back up on the outside of my legs. At the
twenty-five minute mark, my legs were numb. My fingers
were also numb, but not to the same extent as
my legs.
At the thirty minute mark, I started to shake. Not a
violent movie-style shake, but a low tremble in my
thighs and hands. I could not control it. The doctors
needed me to sign a release form in order to give me
medication, but what ended up on the paper was not
really recognizable as my signature due to the shaking
in my hands. The trembling intensified over the
course of ten minutes, although it never got bad
enough that I was bouncing around on the bed. It
was really little more than a shiver like when you are
really, really cold, but I couldn’t stop it.
Forty minutes after exposure, the shaking started to
subside. The nurse took my temperature, and it was
normal. I had another couple of hot and cold flashes,
and my hands began to feel cold and clammy. The doctor
checked my lungs and heart with a stethoscope,
and asked if I had any pain. I didn’t. The doctor
pulled up my shirt and checked for rashes. There were none.
For the next fifteen minutes the hot flashes continued,
but I could feel my heart starting to slow
down. I kept taking my own pulse to make sure my
heart was still beating. At 150bpm, I couldn’t
make out the individual beats of my heart, it was
just tripping along inside my chest, and I wanted
to make sure it didn't stop or start fluttering. I
don’t know what I would have done if it had, but
somehow it made me feel better to monitor it.
Sixty minutes after exposure, there was a noticeable
decrease in the number of hot flashes, and
my heart had come back down to the point I could
count the individual beats. The hospital staff
were no longer monitoring me continuously, and
my coworker and boss showed up at the hospital.
I was just starting to feel better at this point,
and I chatted with them for twenty minutes. It
seemed like the worst was over, so my boss went
back to work, and my buddy stayed with me.
He sat with me for about an hour until another
doctor came in. He checked all my reflexes, asked
me a couple of questions and then left. I got up to
go to the bathroom, and was able to walk down
the hall without too much trouble, though I was
still dizzy and felt very weak.
I lay in the critical care room for another two
hours as my strength slowly came back, and systems
went back to normal. Around the four-hour
mark, my blood pressure was back down to
132/76, which is normal for me, and my heart
rate was 86bpm. I was actually feeling pretty
good, and asked to be discharged. The doctor
agreed and let me go home.
Diagnosis: Toxin Exposure of an unknown nature.
I'm supposed to take it easy this evening and if
anything funny starts to happen, call 911 again.
Honestly, I feel okay now, a little “out of it”, but
I think that’s more from the stress than residual
toxin. One important thing to note was that even though I
had described the zoanthids, and the palytoxin they
are known to produce to the doctors, they were unable
to find any information concerning treatment or
antidotes. The hospital even called the National
Aquarium in Baltimore for information and came up
dry. As I was leaving the hospital, I logged one of
their computers onto Reef Central and showed them
the palytoxin discussions. The hospital staff was
amazed. They filed the information for future use.
It’s 9:20pm. I've been out of the emergency room
for three hours. I guess what I want to say is, that
despite the beauty of our hobby, there are inherent
risks and unknown dangers. I won’t stop keeping
aquariums because of this incident. If anything, I've
just been given a deeper respect for the creatures
that come out of our oceans. But please, be aware,
and be careful. After six years of uneventful reef
keeping, I've come to love this hobby, and I thought
I knew what was going on and had it all under control.
I was put in my place today. It just goes to show you
that we still all have so much to learn, and we have to
be careful about how we learn it.

 

That's why I always use surgical gloves when I handle my frags and my arm gloves when putting my arms in the water. So many of the creatures we keep in our tanks are unknown and can pack a very potent punch. I'd never think about squishing anything, much less a creature with my bare fingers.
Thanks for sharing the story.

 

There is a cream your Dr. can prescribe that may work...it's for poison ivy...I had weepy sores from it on my leg (gat had gotten into it then rubbed against me...grrrrr!) anyway it dry it up and protects from infection.

 

A simple Over The Counter anti-histamine will help a lot with the welts (and likely itching).

However (I AM NOT A DOCTOR) remember how our bodies react to repeated exposures to allergens. Your histamines continue to grow. In other words, repeated exposure will make your reaction worse each time.

Wear gloves!!!

 

That sounds nearly identical to what happened to me Monday the 17th. An ambulance ride and 4 hours in the ER hooked up to all sorts of monitors. This was my third reaction from my tank. Each time it seems to get worse.

 

be careful, if you are developing allergies, which is quite possible, they often escalate like bee stings, first time a minor itch or rash, next time open sores with fever, next time anaphylactic shock. seriously talk to a doctor and get gloves. I know its my fiancée's biggest fear with me and my tank (I don't take precautions either lol)

 

when Im in the gulf of mex, and I encouter a certain jellyfish (i think its stinging nettle, but havent narrowed it down exactly) I get papules on my arms where ive been stung. it looks exactly like lichen nitidus.

 

Thanks everyone for your feedback. Yes i know i need to see a doctor! They are getting better today as I have taken anti - H and using a cream. Yes, i have gloves, but only ever wore them when lifting live rock! Not any more.......