I was wondering if anyone else has issues with allergies to cannabis? I’ve always had some minor issues with it breaking out my skin and aggravating my lungs but wasn’t around it in mass quantities. After several stints of shucking and sorting dry hemp and then feeling like I was going to die for the next 18 hours, I realized it was definitely the hemp that was bothering me. I harvested and hung it while wet for days and it affected me slightly but nothing like this. I know it’s not issues with mold spores as its clean and nobody else had similar issues. I’m going to try a mask next time but does anyone else have similar issues?
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Yes it seems to be strain specific. Maybe terpene specific.
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Yeah, lots of people have had that issue. It has been discussed several times here, but here is my take.
Take over the counter allergy medicine, wear a resperator and a tyvek suit or gloves wih tyvek sleeves.
If you can keep the area you handle biomass ventalated in such a way where the airflow direction/ suction keeps the plant partiuclate at bay.
odd thought, any one have issues from smoking the stuff that made you itchy?
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I’ll try that thanks. Nobody had issues with smoking it. It doesn’t really make me itchy but blotches my skin up that was in contact with the trichs almost like poison ivvy does without the puss inside, but goes away within hours of rinsing off. It’s always done it even if I’m just trimming fan leaves and reaching in
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Oh my holy fucking shit I have the worst weed allergies lol. I’m on a light steroidal antihistamine all the time (I’ve got hay fever and cat allergies), and then had to get an inhaler because it got so bad. If we’re grinding weed I can’t even be in the same room because the terps/dust just fucks me right up.
Whenever possible I just get someone to do the extraction for me and I do the post processing work. Otherwise full suit, gloves and respirator, coupled with open doors and airflow.
I’ve also found anyone who’s been helping me do the extract portion for any period of time are now developing similar issues with hives and sneezing. I think some of the dermititis actually just gets worse the more you’re exposed to it. (At least from 4 separate people so far).
I had to get an inhaler for emergencies, it was getting to the point where I’d be short of breath for hours at a time.
If you’re wanting to keep yourself/workers working for a long time, I’d absolutely recommend everyone at least have gloves and sleeves, if not a respirator. It seems like this only gets worse once it starts.
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Holy smokes, I thought I was the only one! If I breathe dust from grinding, I literally feel like I may die until I use my ventalin inhaler. I first discovered my issue making dry ice sift. My face got so swollen that my eyes were shut. I can’t even smell fresh flower when pheno hunting 
I’ve never met anyone else with these allergies though. I wear a respirator all day long.
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I think cannabis is technically in the ragweed family? I think it’s a pretty common allergin?
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Really common issue when working with Biomass, everyone working in the drying phase and post-process seems to develop some kind of allergy… Me, my team and also occasional workers… also seems that trichome or resin Is causing some kind of dhermatitys…
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Agree, I have asthma also, so am sensitive to it. Long sleeves, take a benedrill if I know I’m going to be in it, and my respirator seems to help avoid a reaction.
Packing tubes (grinding through a screen then packing) seems to be what sets me off the most.
Remember to change cartridges on the respirator regularly. Rule of thumb, if you can smell it, the respirator isn’t working properly
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Allergies are very, very common and most people dont really know they have them till they work with bulk.
Milling dried biomass, handling large amounts of dry bud without gloves, manicuring plants, etc all usually give from what I’ve seen at least 50% of people hives/dermatitis when there is poor PPE and environmental controls. When keif and such becomes airborne it will stick to your sweat, at a minimum the fine particles can wedge into your skin and be irritating. If I rub a bunch of buds into my skin or theres a lot of keif dust in the air I usually get a handful of pea sized hives, they usually subside within 30 mins to 1hr after removal from exposure. I’ve seen some unfortunate folks get dinner plate sized hives from just being near plants, these folks may have to find another job in the industry like retail or post processing. Wearing those armor all sleeves and gloves seems to help most people.
Particulate dust, high concentrations of airborne terpenes, terpenes that are aerosolized by steam/power washing trimmers and other equipment, smoking high terpene extracts, and others have shown to affect almost all asthmatic people to some degree and after prolonged expaure give many people breathing difficulty. I have seen folks who work around keif develop asthma after 2+ years. A good VOC respirator, long term inhalers, and other environmental controls seem to keep these risks low.
I would say in my experience, I’ve met more people who are skin/lung sensitive to cannabis than not. I think you will see a rise in these cases until proper PPE and environmental control standards are applied to the industry.
I’ve heard myths of alleged cases of anaphaltic shock as a result of handling or consuming cannabis, but I’ve never seen a case with any substantial evidence and often seem to confuse asthma symptoms with an IGE mediated allergy response. Supposedly they have found some proteins that cause the skin issues, only found in plant matter. I personally have never seen touching distillate cause a reaction, though many terpenes are known skin irritants in concentrated forms.
The alleged cases of cannabis hyperemesis syndrome have not, to my knowledge, been correlated to an allergy type response.
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Sounds like sensitization. A lot of chemicals cause this overtime.
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So the stems of cannabis appear to have crystals or trichomes to those not in in the know, but actually what they are are barbs intended to dissuade insects from crawling up the stems. These barbs also grow on the buds of certain phenotypes, selected for their crystally appearance. When you harvest trichomes you also end up harvesting these as well. I have known a few people who get hives from touching cannabis to anywhere besides their hands but have no problem smoking it. My theory is that these are connected but I have no proof.
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Interesting take. I think that deserves further research.
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Yuppp. I had to take a day off work the other day after a long day of extracting and taking off my respirator in the same room. My throat and lungs were sore from heavy breathing. I recommend a tyvek suit and a good full face respirator. This thing was worth every penny.
3M Ultimate FX Full Facepiece Reusable Respirator FF-401, Mold, Painting, Sanding, Chemicals, Gases, Dust, Small https://www.amazon.com/dp/B009POIVG2/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_skRaEb0SX3C51
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This is extremely common. It was a challenge finding someone who could mind the grinding room at my last job as one tech after another developed this problem. It definitely is related to sensitization. It always gets worse and worse once it starts. I get skin irritation myself touching large quantities, but not respitory stuff so much.
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Similar things happen to chef’s fairly often in the culinary industry in relation to hand soaps, scented hand soaps and heavily concentrated ones usually being to blame.
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My allergys grew over the years. Especially being around old trim ruins my sinuses. I always wear paint masks and long sleeves.
On a more serious note cannabis can have very serious effects on people who have manic episodes and schizophrenia. It can trigger an episode for sure
Interesting note, when I was spending considerable amounts of time looking at cannabinoids under microscopes I would notice that a fair amount of trichomes seemed to “stick” to the isolations as you could clearly make out the glandular heads and stems. I would also often see these spike looking compounds mixed in with them, look similar to trichomes but no round glandular top, just a a spiked tip. I wonder if that’s at all related to what you were saying
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I would imagine, and I very well could be wrong, that you are seeing merely trichomes with broken heads. The heads are easily dislodged, and the act of handling flower will often do damage much like what you were seeing. Someone may have brushed up against the plant while in flower. Someone may have knocked it against something (or itself) while harvesting. I’ve seen tons of damage to trichomes as a result of regular treatment, but then again, I was limited to 50x magnification the last chance I had to really look.
Edit: Also wanted to mention that I have seen more contact dermatitis and negative respiratory responses to cannabis than I have any other plant. I have seen it end people’s hopes for working in the industry. I, myself, take allergy meds every day (generic zyrtec). When seasonal allergies kick in, I make sure to have a rescue inhaler and have had, at times, steroid injections to settle my system. PPE is mandatory for my employees when grinding. Even for those without allergies, it hurts. Appropriate respirators, tyvek suits, appropriate goggles, and the like should not be an afterthought.
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Yeah I always figured they were just broken trichomes. I was surprised enough to see anything on what I thought were completely rinsed crystal formations. Looking at a variety of flower and concentrates under a microscope changed how I looked at them. I would see small threads of clothing, particulate, etc
I had generally assumed if you smoke California flower that eventually your gonna smoke a few wooks dreadlocks, kind of like the tolerable limit of bug parts in food.
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