Cannabis Allergy but only during harvest?

It's got to be the terpenes.

The only other things I can think of would be mold spores from the soil or plants, or pollen from hidden hermies. The soil spores would only happen with soil growers, the mold spores wouldn't be consistent without notice, and pollen from hidden hermies would vary quite a bit by strain.

Which terpenes? Definitely a good question. Sounds like we need a terpene allergy test, much like allergy tests for other things.

useless.gardens said:

^^^ fact !

*

look into the canna brush.

scissors (and even hand loppers) are always necessary, i got one ;-) works good on dry/very dry flower.

https://www.getcannabrush.com/

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Thanks i’ll check it out

I start taking Reishi mushroom and a supplement called Country-Life Aller-Max a couple weeks before harvest/trim and it helps A LOT. Before reishi I used to use Allegra mainly. And yeah wearing a mask, long sleeves, and nitrile gloves is important.

i have same problem with indoor and outdoor grown weed. once i made an mistake and trimmed when i was full nude.. haha.. made me itch, sneeze, cough, feel nervous and reddish skin at everywhere. lesson learned.

antihistamine 30min before trimming
mask, gloves and comfort clothes
good air movement
breaks while breathing fresh air
stay hydrated and eat well
chill music or movies

there's a lot that goes on here that can cause these effects.

Pollen, late in flower there can be quite a few male flowers hidden in the lowers that will release and trigger anyone with pollen allergies.

Cystoliths, those tiny mineral hairs that cover the plant are a multi-pronged defense system, and against us they penetrate the skin and allow the irritating resins to trigger rashes. airborne hairs are irritants to the nose, throat and lungs.

Terpenes, are basically VOC's (volatile organic chemicals) that can also irritate the eyes, nose, throat and lungs. you can sensitize to exposure to these chemicals so that your symptoms just get worse every time.

Resin, glands (especially during dry trimming) become friable and rain down during trimming, getting in clothes, eyes and mouth with all the above symptoms.

I bet that cana brush works well. I have played around with different brushes and it worked pretty well. I got the idea when i got this POS green broz trim machine. I was realizing that the only "trimming" was being done by the brush. All the blades did was chew it up and break nugs down to smalls. I have All these ideas i have been floating in my head for a brush machine with no blade.

Awesome thread and I thought I was the only one. I get bad rashes on forearms and Cavs when in late veg to mid late flower and my eyes can get it so bad they swell shut dang near water non stop then u get just a tiny sticky icky in there and it's glue and fire is trapped inside.
Then when at er they joke u have gorilla glue in them and I joke and said no it's the purple dosi lemoncehello, they didn't get it but I now have some cool eye drops for next time and I use barrier cream before in garden now and the sticky Ness doesn't get all over your arm hairs.
It's worse than any hay rash I've had on the farm in my life.
Mine only started really bad when I started more indoor work, yrs of outdoors I only got it in hot humid months if I was in them to long on the jungle hike. Sometimes you couldn't wait to get to next gravel road just to breath.

prune said:

Terpenes, are basically VOC's (volatile organic chemicals) that can also irritate the eyes, nose, throat and lungs. you can sensitize to exposure to these chemicals so that your symptoms just get worse every time.

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That makes a lot of sense, because now that I think about it, it has gotten worse for me personally, over the years.

I suppose for me personally, I'll either just deal with it, or invest in the gloves and a mask. I've never heard of "nitrile gloves" until this post. Are they something easy to find in any hardware store or supermarket or walmart? I'm also curious if other gloves would work as well, for example the plastic kind for bleaching your hair?

As for the person who asked if it is more noticable with outdoor vs indoor, well, for me, it's been the same for both, but I've only really grown outdoors one season in 2009, but I still had the same experience although not as bad as it is now, over a decade later. Since then, I only have experience with trimming indoor grown plants.

If it was outdoor grown that was only causing it, I think that would be easy to explain, because pollen from every other plant in the area could be on the buds, so the answer would probably be just that.

As Douglas said "It's gotta be the terpenes", and what Prune said, I think that must be the case, because if this is happening when I'm wet trimming, I don't imagine as many trichomes breaking and flying into the air, as if it was dry trimming.

And, as someone who occassionally decides to eat buds, I can vouch for the fact that it does scratch up your tongue and throat a bit, but I don't personally find it unpleasant, so I know that all of the trichomes, not just the ones we like, but the miniscule ones that are sharp and pointy would make complete sense during a dry trim as well to be an irritant, because by then, each branch and/or bud that's cut will send particles flying.

I'm curious if the terpene profile of the plant also determines how one will react. For example, for the past decade or so I've mostly grown strains high in limonine but I haven't for example, grown a piney strain, or a berryish strain, so I'll do my own personal experiment and grow a strain known to have a different terpene profile than the strains I've been growing and see if when harvest time comes, I notice a difference in symptoms.

wutwut said:

i have same problem with indoor and outdoor grown weed. once i made an mistake and trimmed when i was full nude.. haha.. made me itch, sneeze, cough, feel nervous and reddish skin at everywhere. lesson learned.

antihistamine 30min before trimming
mask, gloves and comfort clothes
good air movement
breaks while breathing fresh air
stay hydrated and eat well
chill music or movies

Click to expand...

Does it happen with just fem seed or regs too.

TheDarkStorm, for me, it has happened with bagseed from cali outdoor, mexican bagseed, regular seed, and feminized seed. So, I don't think the seed type has anything to do with this phenomenon.

Well I just trimmed my last two plants, using a different method, and I'm not experiencing any negative effects.

What I did was, I removed the fan leaves, which never causes me issues, and then hung the plants to dry. After two days, before the plants were dry, or the leaves were dry, but wilting and still somewhat wet, I THEN began trimming. I did this during the phase where the plant temporarily loses it's scent, and has the fresh grass/cucumber scent.

This leads me to believe that it indeed was the terpenes that were initially causing me issues.

I will be trimming this way from now on.

The two plants were then hung again, well manicured, and ready to continue drying.

When I cut the buds off the branches, I might experience some issues, but I will be wearing a mask that will prevent any of the trichomes (bulbous or the sharp kind) from entering my nose or mouth and then I will begin the curing process.

Peace & Love,
Tetra


P.S. If any of you who have also experienced this issue, I'd suggest trying my method and seeing if it works for you, I'm also interested in seeing if this works for others. I also did this unmasked and without gloves, just scissors.

That's awesome! So glad to hear you can trim comfortably again and... now I wonder which terpene(s) cause the effect? lol We'll get there eventually. Good job!

Those of you with pollen allergies, the solution is eating pollen. Check out the pollen allergy thread...

Ive had this problem. A mask doesnt help. I've always had really bad allergies before as well. It just made me not want to get into trimming