Palytoxin Thread Apology.

[Ben Pedersen]

One un-deniable symptom of Palytoxin that is not present in any other non nero toxin sickness is the very strong tast of metal in the mouth. It tastes like sucking on brass.

If people think they have been exposed to Palytoxin but do not have this symptom, either there exposure was very very low or mistaken for something else. Anxiety can cause many common Palytoxin symptoms but it will never cause a strong metal taste in your mouth.

I have been exposed 2 times to Palytoxin by the infamous large brown and green palys from Hawaii (the ones from Hawaiian legend). The reaction was immediate, with the first symptom being a strong metal taste in the mouth followed by flue like symptoms. This was almost 30 years ago.

People need to be careful with all palys.. It does seem that there are only a few varieties that carry palytoxin at a high enough level to cause sickness.

 

[MnFish1]

how did they differentiate marinum infections from specific palytoxin in your friend Zalick / bacterial vs an assigned compound yet to be mentioned in an autopsy


it’s amazing how certain we are, its case closed, we just don’t require any blood tests or screenings or chromatographs or assays or genetic proofs. Case closed it is then. I’ve never had one friend that exhibited a zoonotic infection from a fish tank. It’s not common though I realize everyone will have a friend of a friend now.


we will now discount reef owners who got the legit flu and were cured with flu medicine, they owned a reef it was palytoxin.

If it was vibrio, he would be dead in all likelihood. Marinium does not cause those symptoms. Palytoxin is an extremely well characterized syndrome - depending on whether its ingested, skin exposure, or inhaled. Additionally (havent seen this mentioned here) palytoxin is found in other corals/etc than just zoas, yet we only hear about zoas.

 

[brandon429]

palys are all phased out of my systems by now, don’t guess I’ll re up on them any time soon/ would rather try bounces

 

[MnFish1]

One un-deniable symptom of Palytoxin that is not present in any other non nero toxin sickness is the very strong tast of metal in the mouth. It tastes like sucking on brass.

If people think they have been exposed to Palytoxin but do not have this symptom, either there exposure was very very low or mistaken for something else. Anxiety can cause many common Palytoxin symptoms but it will never cause a strong metal taste in your mouth.

I have been exposed 2 times to Palytoxin by the infamous large brown and green palys from Hawaii (the ones from Hawaiian legend). The reaction was immediate, with the first symptom being a strong metal taste in the mouth followed by flue like symptoms. This was almost 30 years ago.

People need to be careful with all palys.. It does seem that there are only a few varieties that carry palytoxin at a high enough level to cause sickness.

It is not a universal symptom. However, if you have the metallic taste - its one more piece of the puzzle. Much like loss of taste and/or smell with covid. Not everyone has it. Some people when they get an IV, can taste the 'metal' many people cannot.

 

[Cavalina]

@HolySmoke -- glad you guys are ok. Read your original thread with great interest last night.

Looking at the pictures from your phone that you posted a couple of pages back--should have copied it here again, sorry--aren't those palythota heliodiscus or palythota toxic helodiscus? I'm no expert, not even close, but there is a great write up on both in the following article. One of the guys forwarded it last night and I agree that this is the best article out there that I have seen.

Anyway, glad you guys are doing better, and thanks for sharing your full experience!

 

[HolySmoke]

HolySmoke this thread opened up a can of worms. I'm gonna assume Brandon and mellow are Far right conservatives and MN fish and Ben Pederson are progressive democrats. My head is spinning and my tank has palytoxin and deadly bacteria. I need a Xanax.

 

[zalick]

for The record

I try to steer clear of mushroom Juice at all times now!

Come to Oregon. We have the good mushroom juice.

 

[MnFish1]

went to ER on a Friday n the doc was like oh it’s pink eye don’t worry

if it’s not better by Monday follow up with ophthalmologist

he gave me some Numbing drops which I was grateful for because prior to that I was ready to remove my eyeball by hand. I can’t even describe the pain, it was next level

next day I could only see white out of that eye, thought maybe it was healing

Monday morning I went to ophthalmologist, he didnt know what was up but saw an infection in my cornea. I was on steroid drops for 24hrs a day, every half hour. It was rough but they stopped the infection.

when they scraped my cornea it came back as MRSA

there was a lot going on in my life at that time
I was a sanitation worker
I was young n naive
But I clearly remember getting shot in the eye with juice on Friday cleaning a tank then everything spiraled

I had a cut on my arm - from a coral an hour later it was bright red and extremely painful. I was sure I had 'vibrio'. I went into the ER - and they had an infectious disease specialist come see me becasue by the time the area had increased to about 6 inches long - and there was a distinct 'puncture wound' almost like an abscess. It was crazy how quickly it developed. The infectious disease MD said - you know - common things are common - rare things are rare - you probably have a staph or strep infection. They gave me IV antibiotics and within a day it was improved. Since they didnt treat for 'vibrio' it must have been staph or strep. If you have water sprayed in your eye or mouth etc from your tank you should immediately wash and rinse it. Because there can be a lot of stuff in tank water. likewise - cuts on your fingers. Sorry that your eye was lost.

 

[MnFish1]

HolySmoke this thread opened up a can of worms. I'm gonna assume Brandon and mellow are Far right conservatives and MN fish and Ben Pederson are progressive democrats. My head is spinning and my tank has palytoxin and deadly bacteria. I need a Xanax.

Well you got that incorrect - at least on my part lol

 

[Ben Pedersen]

It is not a universal symptom. However, if you have the metallic taste - its one more piece of the puzzle. Much like loss of taste and/or smell with covid. Not everyone has it. Some people when they get an IV, can taste the 'metal' many people cannot.

My understanding was that if your exposure is at a specific level, all will have the metal taste in the mouth. Maybe I am mistaken.

I was exposed via small scratches on my fingers while cleaning and handling the palys. Maybe if you are exposed by breathing it, symptoms are different.

At the time, I had no idea what palytoxin was.. more than 30 years ago.

 

[HolySmoke]

I very well could have tasted metal and didn't notice it. I am an ironworker/welder by trade so tasting metal is kinda the norm.

 

[HolySmoke]

Well you got that incorrect - at least on my part lol

I was only kidding and it was a bad joke playing on the polar opposite beliefs.

 

[Timfish]

I have a question

in a hobby thats forty or so years old, why did all this begin about five years ago

. . .

From what I've seen it was a sensationalist news story on on a morning talk show. I've been aware of paly toxin since at least the early 90's. What hasn't helped is the jargon term "cooking" being used and misinterpreted by neophytes as literally cooking rocks which aerosolizes the toxin which is thermostable. Here's a couple papers I've found using google scholar. Palytoxin has been killing people for a while. The amount of palytoxin found in a colony can vary from none to quite a lot also.

DEFINE_ME

Clinical and laboratory findings implicating palytoxin as cause of ciguatera poisoning due to Decapterus macrosoma (mackerel)

A near fatal case of ciguatera-related intoxication following consumption of smoked Decapterus macrosoma is documented. In addition to some of the hal…

www.sciencedirect.com

Palytoxin Found in Palythoa sp. Zoanthids (Anthozoa, Hexacorallia) Sold in the Home Aquarium Trade

Zoanthids (Anthozoa, Hexacorallia) are colonial anemones that contain one of the deadliest toxins ever discovered, palytoxin (LD50 in mice 300 ng/kg), but it is generally believed that highly toxic species are not sold in the home aquarium trade. We previously showed that an unintentionally...

journals.plos.org

Good morning America just contact me about my palytoxin experience.

Believe it or not, Good Morning America just contacted me regarding my palytoxin experience. They wanted to know if we were willing to be interviewed. I'm not sure if anybody has read the writeup on www.advancedaquarist.com but here is the link...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[zalick]

I had a cut on my arm - from a coral an hour later it was bright red and extremely painful. I was sure I had 'vibrio'. I went into the ER - and they had an infectious disease specialist come see me becasue by the time the area had increased to about 6 inches long - and there was a distinct 'puncture wound' almost like an abscess. It was crazy how quickly it developed. The infectious disease MD said - you know - common things are common - rare things are rare - you probably have a staph or strep infection. They gave me IV antibiotics and within a day it was improved. Since they didnt treat for 'vibrio' it must have been staph or strep. If you have water sprayed in your eye or mouth etc from your tank you should immediately wash and rinse it. Because there can be a lot of stuff in tank water. likewise - cuts on your fingers. Sorry that your eye was lost.

Absolutely. Having spent considerable time working on sailboats in tropics in the Caribbean and south pacific/SE asia in my youth, my cuts were constantly infected and nasty looking. They never seemed to heal. Had to pull an anchor out of a bed of fire coral once. Entire body was covered in red painful welts. Not my smartest decision.

 

[Ben Pedersen]

HolySmoke this thread opened up a can of worms. I'm gonna assume Brandon and mellow are Far right conservatives and MN fish and Ben Pederson are progressive democrats. My head is spinning and my tank has palytoxin and deadly bacteria. I need a Xanax.

Conservative non party afiliated.

 

[MnFish1]

I was only kidding and it was a bad joke playing on the polar opposite beliefs.

I didnt see any polar opposite beliefs... Palytoxin is extremely rare. Its likely that in most people it causes minor symptoms that are ascribed to other things. And - even if you get the 'flu-like' symptoms, etc - they are likely to be self-limiting. Rhabdomyolysis and the other symptoms are another story. If I got symptoms directly after interacting with my aquarium - I would head to the ER.

 

[Mellotang]

Another 1.9 trillion and we still have people starving n steeling in the streets

doesnt fix anything

they are all Corrupt

almost makes me embarrassed to be an American at this point

 

[HolySmoke]

O god what did I start. It wasn't related to politics just was a 2 vs 2 split for bacteria vs palytoxin. It was a bad joke and I think I need to just take your advice Mello and just relax, realize I will never have a definitive answer and I just will hope it doesn't happen again. My bet is still on Palytoxin strictly for respiratory distress alone. We have established though no way to know for sure.

 

[TheStrangler]

But on fair counter point not once has the compound been identified, in blood or serum to me that’s amazing. Usually medicine is pinpoint accurate. It seems fair to say folks are ~90% sure

thats the best we can do currently it seems. I know Dr’s wouldn’t entertain the notion if it was impossible. Is it true there is no test for it whatsoever?

Wouldn't it have to be a large enough issue to warrant having blood tests to identify it? I skimmed the thread in question to pick up some reef hygiene tips, and there were multiple people who said that poison control/their doctors thought they were pulling some sort of prank when they mentioned palytoxin and that they had been handling corals. I'd guess that in North America you could not be tested for the presence of toxins from a poison dart frog or blue ringed octopus because theres no need to spends tens/hundreds of thousands of dollars on the necessary equipment and staff training to meet the demand of the one person who experiences it every other year.

 

[Frogspon]

O god what did I start. It wasn't related to politics just was a 2 vs 2 split for bacteria vs palytoxin. It was a bad joke and I think I need to just take your advice Mello and just relax, realize I will never have a definitive answer and I just will hope it doesn't happen again. My bet is still on Palytoxin strictly for respiratory distress alone. We have established though no way to know for sure.

NB4 the lock.

Pretty sure when your first thread gets locked that it's not wise to start up a new one on the same topic lol