I’m posting this for a friend of mine. A couple of days ago my friend made 4 cuts about 3′ long in some air dried cherry with his table saw in a basement shop. With in a few minutes his thoat started to close down. He went outside and felt better after about 20 minutes. He and I have searched the internet and cannot find any referances to allergic reactions to cherry. One side note is that prior to going into the basement to work his wife was cleaning the oven. He has used cherry in the past with no ill effects. Has anyone heard of this reaction?
Thanks
Replies
ArchyII,
I'm currently turning legs for a windsor stool out of cherry and developed a rash on my wrists and one of my ankles. I know chips collect in the top of my shoes when I'm turning, and of course the chips come into contact with my hands and arms. I don't know.
It's gone away, but it's strange the rash appeared a few days after working with the cherry.
6
It is possible that the cherry caused the problem but the reaction is a classic one to the lye contained in most oven cleaners, it is about the nastiest stuff on earth. The fact that the symptoms appeared and then cleared quickly also suggests that the oven cleaner was the cause, most allergic reactions to dust take longer to clear up.
John W.
Edited 12/2/2004 10:50 am ET by JohnW
Thanks. He is a little leary of making a few new cuts to see what happens.
Archy,
Your friend is wise to be cautious! What you describe is a classic anaphylactic reaction, and that can kill you. I stongly urge you to tell him to get his medical advice from his doctor, not from a bunch of us woodworkers. The most commonly recognize source of this type of reaction is a bee sting, but it can be from any thing you are allergic to including food, plants, animal danger, or certain wood dust or lye. Plus, these allergies can occur even though you were previously not allergic to the substance.
With this type of reaction there will be a swelling in the air passages, restricting breathing. Benadryl can help manage a reaction, but it is too slow in the case of a sever reaction. A sever reaction will cut off his air flow and he cannot breath, so he has only a very few minutes to take action! People with allergies often carry a special epinephrine injector pen as this can help provide immediate relief. These can only be obtained with a Dr.'s pescription.
I strongly urge him to talk to his doctor before trying the cuts again. Certainly he should be certain that he has someone near, just in case (and a phone nearby to call 9-1-1).
I don't mean to be an alarmist, but he should be very cautious. Not being able to breathe will get your attention very quicly!
Woody
Woody,
I posted the comment about the reaction being more likely caused by exposure to the oven cleaner rather than the cherry dust. While I agree that it pays to be cautious, I have to say that your response is overly alarmist and contains a few medical errors.
First my credentials, I worked for five years as a licensed Emergency Medical Technician and for several more years in an industrial safety consulting company dealing with toxic exposures. I've also been a woodworker for almost thirty years and I keep up to date on hazards related to woodworking.
The symptoms described were not "a classic anaphylactic reaction" they were the typical reaction that anyone would have to being exposed to a very irritating chemical, in fact the symptoms described fit this type of exposure perfectly.
None of the several other symptoms associated with a true anaphylactic reaction were present. Even if the person was becoming sensitized to cherry dust, that still wouldn't automatically be classified as an anaphylactic reaction and it would almost never be instantaneously life threatening in the way you describe.
This is not to downplay the risk of repeated exposure to wood dust, it is well documented as a moderately hazardous material even to people who don't have a special sensitivity to it. In addition, people who do become sensitized to certain woods and glues can have quite severe immediate and long term health problems. Wood dust can also carry mold spores that can cause very serious chronic lung problems.
John W.
Thanks all.
I think he should see a doctor. Nothing worse than the wife finding you dead in the basement after working on her christmas jewelry case.
"He has used cherry in the past with no ill effects."
Kind of makes you wonder if it isn't a specific species of cherry (there's quite a few) that's the culprit. Or possibly the wood picked up some wierd toxic mold?
It is possible that it's an allergic reaction to the sawdust, so that should be checked out even though the oven cleaner is probably a more likely cause of the problem. I think a doctor can check for allergy using a skin test, where a positive reaction would be just itchy, not life-threatening as it could be for breathing the stuff. Probably someone else could prepare the sawdust to give the doctor.
Hi Arch,
I read your posting about a reaction to cherry. I suffer from allergy and asthma and I don't usually suffer any paricular syptomswhen working with cherry. I DO though suffer pretty powerful allergic reactions if the wood has been left in a damp place and microscopic molds and fungi have developed on its surface. As you worked this cherry in a basement, is it possible that it has been exposed to enough dampness to grow the toxic litle critters?
Take care!
Treeman
It could be a reaction to sawdust from the cherry. It could also be a reaction to the oven cleaner, particularly if his house has forced air HVAC and the heat was on.
Getting checked by an allergist would be a good idea, as would using the oven cleaner only when (1) the HVAC system is off and (2) doors, windows open with a good fan exhausting to outside from the kitchen. Industrial grade dust mask is a must, if it's not NIOSH rated it's not worth the powder it'd take to blow it up.
Another possibility is minute areas of spalting in the cherry, airborne fungus is really nasty stuff. Again, industrial rated dust mask.
Regards,
I'm an ER physician as well as a wood worker. Allergic reactions can develop to virtually any biological substance, certainly to any species of wood. A true allergic reaction only develops after a sensitizing exposure, which means NOT on the first exposure to the substance. In fact, the allergic reaction may not occur until the patient has been exposed many, many times. Or it may happen on the second exposure. Sometimes there is cross reactivity such that the allergic reaction happens on the first exposure to a particular substance after the sensitisation has occured by exposure to a chemically or immunologically similar substance.
The response you describe sounds like it may well be a real allergic reaction, although it may be an irritation only. If there were not additional symptoms such as rash, itching, swelling, fainting, difficulty breathing, then it may not have been a true allergy. This is important because if it IS a true allergy, it is a pretty serious type of allergic reaction and the next time it could be fatal. It could also be minimal or nothing with the next reaction as well. The reaction may have been to the cherry itself or to some type of mold or fungus present on the board that was aerosolized by the table saw. YOur friend should see his doctor and arrange specific allergy testing, and if he is allergic to cherry, carefully clean his table saw of dust, so that it doesn't happen again.
What other kinds of wood has he worked with lately and how often does he clean the dust out of his saw? If he has his saw in the basement and it is warm and somewhat humid down there, it's possible that mold or fungus was in something he cut in the recent past and was kicked up by the turbulence inside the saw. Sounds like he wasn't wearing a mask and the fine dust from the cherry was a factor, although it's still conceivable that the oven cleaner is the culprit.
"I cut this piece four times and it's still too short."
Any organic dust can cause a profound allergic reaction. He shouldn't think a dust mask is going to prevent this either.
Frank
See below. He's speaking here of American black cherry (Prunus serotina)
http://www.taunton.com/finewoodworking/pages/w00156.asp
Toxicity is a minor, but real concern
One of the more sinister aspects of cherry's strange chemistry is that it harbors some bitter and potentially dangerous compounds. Ordinarily, unless an individual has a highly allergic sensitivity to the compounds in cherry, the only noticeable impact they have on most woodworkers is that they contribute to the wood's pleasant scent. In fact, some of these compounds, when sweetened or diluted with other ingredients, produce commercially important flavorings or even helpful medicines. For example, packing strips of the inner bark into a jar filled with whiskey yields a tannin-rich concoction that has been used for centuries as a folk tonic and cough suppressant. However, lurking among these compounds is a glycoside (a sugar derivative) called prunasin, which is a precursor of cyanide in that it can combine with hydrogen in the digestive system to form hydrocyanic acid (also called prussic acid.) Prunasin is found mostly in the foliage and seed pits of cherry and other related fruit trees, but small amounts of it are also present in the wood.
While woodworkers need not be highly concerned for their personal safety when working with the wood, what we choose to make from it does demand some degree of caution. Items destined for use in the kitchen or that will be handled by young children aren't the most ideal applications for this species. The use of cherry in cutting boards or even salad bowls is probably safe because the food comes in contact with the wood only briefly and typically at cool temperatures. But other food- or toy-related applications are not without any risk. For example, kitchen utensils such as stirring spoons that might be left to simmer in a pot of hot stew, or even small toys that might be chewed on by infants both risk exposing the wood to conditions that may allow its extractives to be leached out in high enough quantities to be poisonous.
PlaneWood by Mike_in_Katy (maker of fine sawdust!)
PlaneWood
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