I went to a small protest during the start of the No Kings stuff a few months ago.

I didn’t do much; other people were getting up to stuff, and i was just there as a warm body/support/whatever i guess. I happened to be near somebody the police shot a crowd control weapon at. The gas only got me a little bit - initially it was maybe a minute or two of eye/face irritation and then it was fine.

but in the following days, my tear ducts swelled up, my hands and feet swelled up such that i had massive skin dieoff, and i thought i was fucking dying with how sick i felt

Now it seems to be cyclical. Right now my eyes are swolen and red again. My hands are swolen again. My joints hurt. This is the third time since being exposed that this has happened, and I had never experienced anything like that before going to this protest

I genuinely don’t know what to do to deal with this, it’s hugely disruptive. Does it go away? I t hought people on hexbear might have some insight, because right now i mostly have to just suck it up - take anti-inflammatories, tylenol, etc. and dabbing pain relieving ointments around the outside of my eye

these motherfuckers will poison you just for protesting.

  • RiotDoll [she/her, she/her]@hexbear.netOPEnglish
    11·
    15 days ago

    The basics are:

    i was extremely conscientious of the exposure and removing any kind of irritant contamination from my c lothes. i stripped immediately on getting home, washed everything, washed everything i touched incidentally. Anything washable was washed. any surface was scrubbed.

    i would wonder if it’s something else as far as cause, but nothing else makes sense, and the symptoms consistently just imitate post-exposure symptoms

    • Neuromancer49@midwest.socialEnglish
      10·
      15 days ago

      My sibling had recurrent poison ivy because they touched a light switch. Just gonna toss that out there - it could be residue on something real random

    • hellinkilla [they/them, they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
      6·
      15 days ago

      Well if you are certain to have eliminated new exposures, the cause might not be too important if there is a drug to interrupt it. Because the actual instigator is gone and no longer relevant.

      Like some people get asthma after a cold, but you can get it from smoke too. If it’s 5 days after your cold is cured, or the smoke is cleared, the treatment is the same in either case because the problem is the immune system.

      In your case it would be useful to know for next time you go to a protest of course. Especially if you find something that treats it.

    • D61 [any]@hexbear.netEnglish
      2·
      15 days ago

      Have your own clothes washing machine and clothes dryer or do you use a laundromat?

      If you’ve got your own laundry machines… maybe bath towels got contaminated somehow?

      Mixed contaminated clothes with bath towels in the washing machine? Or washed towels afterwards for a chance at residue transfering between washes?

      A significant portion of a regular sized clothes washing machine is never actually submerged, it might get a bit of water spashed on it but there won’t be any soapy water or agitating laundry touching the surfaces scrubbing anything nefarious away.

      Shit might have transfered to to the dryer too… but after a few months of regular weekly+ clothes drying at high heat I’d imagine that it would have broken down by now.