Hi Nell, Interesting but traumatic event for you. Sporothichosis has been
discussed in the past but
have never heard anybody actually get the infection?
Were you using the green live sphagnum moss or the stuff that people use
nowadays that is
bleached looking & dead?
I saw a photo of a bad case & it looked terrible.
Cheers Wendy
"Nell" wrote in message
.cable.rogers.com...
Michael Gerzog wrote:
Pure coincidence. The infection you're referring to -- sporotrichosis
- is fungal and pretty rare unless you have a compromised immune
system. I'm not a doctor and don't play one on TV, but I'm willing to
hazard the guess that a fungal sinus or (typical) "ear infection"
would be one for the record books....

I contracted sporotrichosis many years ago (in my 20s) when I was using
spagnum in repotting a Crown of Thorns.

A lump developed on my left index finger that I thought nothing of for a
while. It didn't hurt and was only a little red. Thought I might have a
splinter or something and it would work its way out.

When smaller lumps began to appear on the back of my hand and then up my
arm, I took myself to a doctor and was given the diagnosis. It was very
rare and I was asked if I would volunteer to be seen by a stream of
doctors at a city hospital, most of whom had never seen this infection.

The doctor first cleaned out the finger lesion - down to the bone (ouch)
- and gave me stuff to put in my orange juice. Nasty nasty. Iodine or
something.

I did get better but it took a long time - several months as I recall.
Prior to this I had been very healthy and didn't really feel sick with
this but was told that it could cause internal problems if not dealt with.

So... not as rare as I would have liked. And was probably infected after
being scratched by the thorns without even knowing it.

I'm sure all of this is more than any of you wanted or needed to know. I
haven't used spagnum moss since for any purpose.