Palytoxin in my eye experience.

[J. Austin]

Just wanted to share with the forum that I took a shot of Palytoxin to my right eye and it’s horrible.

I almost always have safety goggles when I handle zoa/palys and I always have them on when I propagate/frag them. This particular time I was just quickly picking a piece of bubble algae off a frag and one of the zoanthids squirted me in my right eye.

I instantly felt irritation and knew it was going to be a rough night. This was at 4pm on a Monday the 11th of Feb. that evening things got way worst and I went to the emergency room. My eye was irrigated out for 20 minutes with the pretty cool device that sits on your eye under your eye lids......not cool actually....it sucked pretty bad.

Two bags of fluids later they removed the torture device and took blood for lab work. The Dr attending that night was concerned I may have inhailed it and he was contemplating keeping me over the night. Since my vitals were good, I was released with some non narcotic pain meds and antibiotics.

Fast forward to today, 14 Feb, my eye is still swollen and red. More painful than before. I made an appointment with my eye Dr and she prescribed steroids and antibiotics as well as a cream to put under my eyelid at night.

I say all this to share the danger of the toxin and that it can be in many species of zoa/paly. Please be careful and put on safety glasses even when handeling these guys. You never know what might happen.

Enjoy the nasty eye photo.

Still hurts a good bit today. I have follow up appointments with my eye Dr every day until the weekend.

Fruit Loop Zoa was the one that got me.

 

[Sierra_Bravo]

Holy smokes. :eek:

Feel better and get well soon.

 

[Coralmaniac21]

Like 4 days ago i had palytoxin exposure.. within 2 hours i had a head ache.. and in thr middle of the night i woke up to body achs and chills yet i had a fever and my body itself was hot... i also was dizzy... it went away the next morning thankfully.

I wont be messing with that coral ever again.


Pretty sure i rrad palytoxin can make you blind.. or lose vision so lets hope that doesnt happen

 

[justmee]

That's sucks, get well soon.

 

[J. Austin]

Thank you.

 

[pdxmonkeyboy]

Could have been just an infection...zoas and tank water carry some serious bacteria in them.

The reason I say this is that if it was paly toxin it is very likely that you would not have 20/20 right now. And to my knowledge, it is mostly palythoa that carry the toxin. But perhaps they just carry the concentrated forms of it.

A club member of our recently got zapped with palytoxin. she was removing palys while wearing gloves and glasses. later that night she had a metallic taste in her mouth and her eye started itching. the next day she had "the most intense pain that she has ever felt" in her eye. she said it was worse than child birth. She went to a couple different eye clinics. (we have one of the best eye clinics on the west coast). This happened 3 weeks ago, say her last weekend she said she has 60/20 vision right now.

anyways.. be safe out there!!

 

[J. Austin]

Could have been just an infection...zoas and tank water carry some serious bacteria in them.

The reason I say this is that if it was paly toxin it is very likely that you would not have 20/20 right now. And to my knowledge, it is mostly palythoa that carry the toxin. But perhaps they just carry the concentrated forms of it.

A club member of our recently got zapped with palytoxin. she was removing palys while wearing gloves and glasses. later that night she had a metallic taste in her mouth and her eye started itching. the next day she had "the most intense pain that she has ever felt" in her eye. she said it was worse than child birth. She went to a couple different eye clinics. (we have one of the best eye clinics on the west coast). This happened 3 weeks ago, say her last weekend she said she has 60/20 vision right now.

anyways.. be safe out there!!

It’s not infected. It took minutes to look like this. I no longer have 20/20 in that eye. I’m sitting at worse than 20/30 at the moment. Hopefully it corrects when it heals.

 

[pdxmonkeyboy]

bummer. I hope it gets better, I jabbed my finger with an exact blade that I was cutting zoas with last night. swollen up like a hot dog at the moment:(

 

[Coralmaniac21]

20-30 isnt bad. I was 20/40 with astigmatism in one eye and i didnt even know my vision was like that.... anything past 20/40 though and things get blurry like reading signs in the grocery store or on roads ect.

Hopefully your vision doesnt get worse because it can get bad. Funny thing about palytoxin is i read it can also attack cancer cells.. they have been researching it as a way to help with cancer.

At least thats what i read.


All i knoq is my bout with the toxin sucked.. it may have been one night with body achs chills fever headache and dizzyness... but that was more then enough for me to never want to manhandle zoas or palys again..

Ill probably still buy them but on frags ready to glue and never to be toucjed again lol

 

[Coralmaniac21]

bummer. I hope it gets better, I jabbed my finger with an exact blade that I was cutting zoas with last night. swollen up like a hot dog at the moment:(

Keep an eye out on that wound. And watch for other symptoms... me simply touching the juices bare handed got me with chills body aches fever and dizzyness and headaches