Myrtle Spurge
Myrtle Spurge
Myrtle spurge is a plant that at a first look, can look like a very normal plant that will be a good ground cover on your garden. Don't make the same mistake that my Mom and her sister, Jennifer made. It is a toxic plant that can cause terrible rashes and blindness. Here are some pictures of it:
Rashes
You get rashes from myrtle spurge by rubbing the milk of the plant on your skin. This has happened to me before, because my Aunt gave it to my Mom, not knowing it was toxic.We planted it in our garden and we soon had about thirty plants. One day, she just wasn't okay with how much it was spreading, so she pulled it all out. From holding bunches at a time, she got a rash. Not knowing it was from the Spurge, she told her sister about the plant and how much it was spreading. Jennifer had recently learned that it was toxic and told my Mom about it. We found out it is banned in many places and has sent people to then hospital. Later, since I had touched the milk from one and gotten it on my leg, I got a huge rash that looked like this:
I touched the milk on Thursday, June 23rd. This is me weeding in the garden.
My Mom learned it was toxic on Saturday, I got a rash on Monday, it got so bad that I showed my mom on Wednesday, June 29th while we were setting up for camping. My mom called the Utah County Extension office and talked to a horticulturist who said we should eradicate the plant We tried lots of things to help it and make me feel better, but it kept getting worse until my mom took me to the urgent care Friday. The doctor said it was a bad case of atopic dermatitis, and looked like poison oak or ivy. So it wasn't surprising to him that it came from a garden plant. He said to keep it covered and wrote me two prescriptions because I had a secondary infection, too. It spread because the oils coming from it was getting all over my legs.
Here are pictures of my lower leg:
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| Wednesday afternoon |
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