Wood allergies

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Well it looks like I won't be making any Shaker furniture. I do believe I am allergic to white oak.

Had a friend come out yesterday and use some tools. I just sat around and watched. Well the dust from the stuff tore me up. Eyes were nearly swollen shut this morning and they itch like crazy. Benedryl is my friend today. I can't understand how white oak did this but red oak doesn't .
 
Get an allergy test Steve. I thought I was alergic to cedar after ending up in the hospital with my neck swollen and not being able to breath. Turns out after the scratch tests that I'm not allergic to cedar at all. Actually no woods just certain grass's. They have no idea what the reaction was to the cedar was or maybe it was just the dust. :dunno:
 
I forget which one, but my dad had an episode where some wood dust nearly put him in the hospital. Of course he was using a belt sander without a mask at the time, but still...

Pays to be careful..
 
Well Steve, I am alergic to walnut but not all walnut. I have worked with walnut in the past and never had a problem, turned a bowl for my niese and woke up with the worst 9and only ) alergic reaction of my life. Doctors used the sawdust from my shop to confirm. It took more then beneidril to make me better, need some perscription stuff.
 
cedar will get me going and walnut dust has made me sneeze but i have never had trouble with white oak steve i agree yu need to get a scratch test.. they use WO for alcohol because of the nature it doesnt cause flavor changes and is more water proof in the kegs.. so i would lean to something else gettin yu going..
 
Apart from whatever allergies one may suffer some woods and their dust are toxic.

Iroko for instance, I used it on my coffetable and I almost could feel myself choking, curious enough, when I used it again a few days later all the bad symptoms didn't reproduce , and I sanded it by hand so maybe I was de-sensitized instead of sensitized:dunno:
 
I've been reading a lot about this lately because I have a lot of allergies and I'd like to avoid being sensitized to any potential wood allergies. It turns out that it's hard to predict which ones will bother you, but some are notorious for causing problems. I found this website helpful.

Cynthia,
That's a good site... I've looked at it before and I think my nemesis wood on there is Paduak... problem with the site, there's no legend to tell what the symbols mean... I can figure out the parts affected, but the severity needs more clarification.... I'm about over my hives reaction to turning one (1) little ring of paduak glued up with some maple.... the piece I turned was about 3" round and less than 1" thick... Paduak is such pretty wood to work too...:(
 
I might check into a test to see what is was. I can't think of anything else it could have been. Might have been something in the woodstove, but i really don't see that.

All i know for sure is it was pretty rough.

If I don't find out for sure, my dream of building Quaker furniture with Cynthia is squashed.
 
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